A Japanese professor and members of the U.S. National Institutes of Health have developed a potential vaccine for Ebola, the team reported Thursday in the online version of the U.S. journal Science. The substance has been found in tests to protect monkeys from infection.

Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor at the University of Tokyo's Institute of Medical Science, expressed hope the work will "mark a major step" in fighting Ebola in West Africa.

The team plans to test the new vaccine on humans, he added.

The team developed the vaccine after deleting from the Ebola virus a key gene known as VP30. This created a new strain that is unable to reproduce in normal cells.

However, the virus can be replicated massively by transmitting it to certain cells that incorporate VP30. This allows a vaccine stock to be built up.

The team "inactivated the vaccine with hydrogen peroxide" so that it can be inoculated safely and the "chemically inactivated vaccine remained . . . protective in nonhuman primates," the journal reported.

In an experiment, two crab-eating monkeys were infected with natural Ebola virus four weeks after they received two doses of the new vaccine. They survived.

The results indicate that the vaccine created antibodies to the Ebola virus and likely prevented infection.

The team said clinical tests of three other Ebola vaccines are under way but face concerns about safety or effectiveness.

The team also said the artificially created virus can be handled in facilities because there is no risk that humans will be infected by it.