Emily Speranza, Ph.D., first heard about Ebola virus when she was five years old.

“I remember hearing about it on the news and little me thought, ‘This is terrifying. I need to know everything about it so I am not so scared,’” she said. “In that process, I realized, ‘Wow! These viruses are actually kind of cool.’”

That fascination never faded. Now a recognized expert in Ebola and related viruses, immunology and bioinformatics, Dr. Speranza joined Texas Biomed as an Assistant Professor in the spring. She is splitting her time between her own research and overseeing high-containment studies for partners working with Texas Biomed’s Applied Science and Innovation unit.

Studying the body’s first response

Dr. Speranza’s research zeroes in on the earliest moments after exposure to a severe virus like Ebola, which is essentially a race between the virus and the body’s defenses.

“We want to understand how fast the virus can replicate versus how fast the host can respond,” she said. “How can we potentially give the host a bit of an edge?”

To do this, she studies the full environment surrounding an infection, not just one or two cell types, using powerful tools that help researchers spot patterns that could eventually be targeted by new treatments.

An accidental math major

Dr. Speranza was studying biology at Carroll College in her hometown of Helena, Montana, when a professor noticed her knack for math and encouraged her to take more advanced classes — enough that she ended up earning a second degree in math almost without realizing it.

She went on to study bioinformatics at Boston University, blending “my passion for biology and deadly pathogens with my math brain.” Along the way, she worked with some of the world’s most dangerous and least understood viruses, including Ebola, Zika and Chikungunya.

“I fell in love with the field of these emerging pathogens,” she said. “You’re always on the cutting edge because there’s not a lot that we know about them.”

Protein action in extreme detail

While at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, she helped develop an innovative method for studying how dozens of proteins behave simultaneously in a single tissue sample during infection — specifically tailored for high-containment labs with stricter safety protocols. This “deep spatial proteomics” approach builds a fuller picture of infection dynamics, similar to techniques used to study the complexity of tumor microenvironments.

She now brings this expertise to Texas Biomed and is looking forward to future collaborations.

“I am really excited about the people here, where emerging pathogens is on the forefront of everyone’s minds,” she said.