Julianna Margulies Will Get Medical Again for Ebola Series The Hot Zone

Julianna Margulies has booked her next TV role, and it's going to have you washing and rewashing your hands.

The erstwhile ER star will scrub back in for Nat Geo's upcoming scripted drama The Hot Zone, which is based on the terrifying 1995 non-fiction book of the same name by Richard Preston. She'll play Dr. Nancy Jaax, a heroic U.S. Army scientist who puts her life on the line to battle an Ebola outbreak before it spreads to the human population. This new series is based on the terrifying true story of the origins of the Ebola virus and its first arrival in the U.S. in 1989, when the virus suddenly appeared in chimpanzees in a scientific research lab in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Julianna Margulies Goes Full Devil Wears Prada in This Dietland Trailer

This is an awesome score for Nat Geo, which is working on producing scripted television that aligns with its science-first branding. Margulies is a three-time Emmy winner (once for ER and twice for The Good Wife), and is one of TV's strongest leading women. After The Good Wife ended, she moved over to AMC's Dietland, which is currently in its first season.

The Hot Zone joins other dramatized Nat Geo fare such as Mars, Valley of the Boom and Genius.

Production on The Hot Zone begins this fall.