Erica Ollmann Saphire

Erica Ollmann Saphire is an American structural biologist and immunologist and a professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology.

She investigates the structural biology of viruses that cause hemorrhagic fever such as Ebola, Sudan, Marburg, Bundibugyo, and Lassa.

[3] In 2024, Saphire used in situ cryo-electron tomography to illuminate Ebola virus replication factories inside living cells revealing a hitherto unresolved third and outer layer of the nucleoprotein.

[5] Saphire attracted national media attention in 2014 when she launched a crowdfunding appeal to raise funds for equipment to assist in research to fight Ebola virus.

[12] Saphire directs the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Immunotherapeutic Consortium (VIC)[10] and is a strong advocate for strategic collaborations to rapidly develop treatments for Ebola and other severe threats.

[16] Saphire is also spearheading "America's SHIELD:Strategic Herpesvirus Immune Evasion and Latency Defense"[17] as part of ARPA-H's Antigens Predicted for Broad Viral Efficacy through Computational Experimentation (APECx) program.