News & Updates
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Summer students from the Mubareka lab had the opportunity to present their research at the annual summer student poster competition at Sunnybrook. Congratulations to the students!
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Summer students, Will Zhang and Parham Bokaei Jazi, from the Mubareka lab had the opportunity to present their research at the annual undergraduate student poster competition at the University of Toronoto. Will won first prize and Parham won second prize. Fantastic work!
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Trainees from multiple WILD-EPI labs attended the Zoonoses, AMR, and BioInformatics (ZAMBI) meeting hosted at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Trainees had the opportunity to present and network with researchers from Canada and beyond. Great work everyone! Check out the program here.
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Trainees from multiple WILD-EPI labs attended the 2026 Canadian Society for Virology Symposium hosted at the University of Guelph. Many trainees were able to present their work. Dr. Karen Mossman (McMaster) and Dr. Mike Norris (University of Toronto) were awarded the Mentor Award for Senior Investigators and the Early Career Researcher Award, respectively.…
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Juliette Blais-Savoie, PhD candidate in the Mubareka lab, attended the 2026 Ecology and evolution of infectious diseases conference at Virginia Tech and represented WILD-EPI. Great work Juliette!
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Members of the Mubareka lab attended the University of Toronto’s Microbiology and Infectious Disease (MID) Research Days hosted by the Emerging & Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC). This was a great opportunity for trainees to present and network with the EPIC community. Some photos of WILD-EPI members are shared with this post! Amazing work!
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Trainees from multiple WILD-EPI labs attended the 2026 Annual Conference of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution in Toronto, Ontario, presenting new findings and engaging with the broader ecology research community. Congratulations to all of the trainees who presented at the conference!
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Deanna Tait is a Master’s student in Epidemiology and Applied Health Research in Dr. Fin Maguire’s lab at Dalhousie University. Deanna is a WILD-EPI trainee and was a member of the 2024-2025 Canopy cohort. From Deanna’s perspective:“As a member of the 2024-2025 cohort of Canopy, I attended two symposium/workshops in 2025 which aimed…
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Testing for a wildlife reservoir of divergent SARS-CoV-2 in white-tailed deer Authors: Crawshaw, L., J. D. Kotwa, S. P. Jeeves, C. Loomer, A. Dibernardo, A. Stewart, S. L. Newar, E. Chien, W. Yim, P. Kruczkiewicz, O. Vernygora, O. Lung, A. I. Schulte-Hostedde, L. Nituch, F. Maguire, B. Pickering, C. M. Jardine, H. Coatsworth,…
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Evaluating transboundary connectivity to support cross-border conservation between Canada and the United States Authors: O’Brien, P., S. Tapper, M.G.C. Brown, A. Brennan, S. Mubareka, R. Pither, and J. Bowman. 2026. Landscape connectivity is considered critical for maintaining biodiversity. Many jurisdictions have identified the importance of considering connectivity in land-use plans, and connectivity has…
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Sauhard was awarded the CIHR-funded Canopy fellowship, amounting to 12,000 CAD for one year. The fellowship was awarded for his work on studying innate immune regulation in bats and humans by RNA viruses. Read more.
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Dr. Karen Mossman will be a keynote speaker at this years One Health Research day at the University of Guelph. This half-day event is open to all and is a great opporunity for networking. Read more.
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Sauhard won the best poster award at the Prairie Infection and Immunity Network (PIIN) 2025 conference in Saskatoon for his work on characterizing restriction factors in bats. Congratulations Sauhard!
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SARS-CoV-2 infection disrupts the host’s immune system, altering autoimmune responses. This study investigated host autoreactivities in SARS-CoV-2 infections, their association with severe COVID-19, and the neutralizing antibody response. Circulating autoantibodies were detected in convalescent serum samples from unvaccinated SARS-CoV-2-infected patients. Clustering, correlation analysis, principal component analysis, and neural network modeling were used to…
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Sauhard attended the IBRC 2025 meeting where he presented Banerjee Lab’s work on developing an in-vivo insectivorous bat model for MERS-CoV.
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The Canadian Academy of Health Sciences brings together Canada’s top-ranked health and biomedical scientists and scholars to make a positive impact on the urgent health concerns of Canadians. Congrats Arinjay!
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Members of the Mubareka and Jardine lab attended the Wildlife Disease Association 2025 in Victoria, British Colombia. This was a great opportunity for trainees to present and network with the international wildlife disease research community. Some photos of WILD-EPI members are shared with this post! Amazing work!
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SARS-CoV-2 has caused the largest known coronavirus pandemic and is believed to have emerged from insectivorous bats. Little is known about the evolution of these viruses in their reservoir bat species. In this study, we investigate the SARS-CoV-2-host interaction using human and bat cells. Bat cells mount a robust and early antiviral response…
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Dr. Jonathon Kotwa (Mubareka lab) and Dr. Sophie-Marie Aicher (Mubareka and Banerjee lab) helped organize and run the UK-ICN ECR Day conference as ECR representatives. The goal of this research day was to provide a platform for ECRs and trainees to share there research in a more relaxed setting and among peers. The…
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Trainees from multiple WILD-EPI labs attended the 2025 American Society for Virology conference in Montreal, Quebec, presenting new findings and engaging with the broader international virology research community. We are pleased to share a few snapshots from some of the WILD-EPI trainees. Congratulations to all of the trainees who presented at the conference!
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Coronaviruses are abundant and diverse RNA viruses with broad vertebrate host ranges. These viruses include agents of human seasonal respiratory illness, such as human coronaviruses OC43 and HKU1; important pathogens of livestock and domestic animals such as swine acute diarrhoea syndrome coronavirus and feline coronavirus; and human pathogens of epidemic potential such as…
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The ability of multiple bat species to host zoonotic pathogens without often showing disease has fostered a growing interest in bat immunology to discover the ways immune systems may differ between bats and other vertebrates. However, interspecific variation in immunological diversity among bats has only begun to be recognized. The order Chiroptera accounts…
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Bats are reservoirs of emerging zoonotic viruses that may cause severe disease in humans and agricultural animals. However, it is poorly understood how bats can tolerate diverse viral infections. Here, we characterized type I interferon response pathways in kidney cell lines derived from two divergent bat species, Pteropus alecto and Eptesicus fuscus, identifying distinct mechanisms underlying…
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Dr. Arinjay Banerjee and PhD candidate Arkadeb Bhuinya attended the CIACCO this June in Sherbrooke. Congrats to both representing WILD-EPI!
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Nipah virus (NiV) is a zoonotic paramyxovirus belonging to the genus Henipavirus, which infects Pteropus bat species in Southeast and South Asia. Since its discovery in the late 1990s in Malaysia, NiV has caused outbreaks in humans in Singapore, Bangladesh, India and the Philippines. The spillover pathway for the most recent NiV outbreak in 2023 in…
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The 2021 discovery of a divergent lineage (B.1.641) of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) from Ontario raised concerns that deer were a potential reservoir. To assess whether white-tailed deer continued to be infected with B.1.641 and to test for spillover into other species, we established a…
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Arkadeb Bhuinya,PhD student in Dr. Arinjay Banerjee’s lab, was awarded first place for the basic science 6 at the 2025 Life & Health Sciences Research Expo at the University of Saskatchewan. Congrats Arkedeb! Read more.
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Background In April of 2024, studies in the United States (US) identified the presence of influenza A(H5N1) viral RNA in 20%–40% of commercially available pasteurized milk in the US, suggesting that cattle infections were widespread across the country. Methods As an initial assessment of the situation in Ontario, 117 samples of pasteurized cow’s…
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The Coronation Medal commemorates the Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III as King of Canada. The medal is awarded to individuals who have made a significant contribution to Canada or to a particular province, territory, region or community of Canada, or have made an outstanding achievement abroad that brings credit to Canada. Congratulations…
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Zoonoses are infectious diseases transmitted from animals to humans. Bats have been suggested to harbour more zoonotic viruses than any other mammalian order1. Infections in bats are largely asymptomatic2,3, indicating limited tissue-damaging inflammation and immunopathology. To investigate the genomic basis of disease resistance, the Bat1K project generated reference-quality genomes of ten bat species,…
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Bats are reservoir hosts for a number of coronaviruses, some of which may pose spillover risks for humans and other animals. Surveillance for bat coronaviruses in temperate regions remains limited and represents an important blind spot for emerging pathogen preparedness and bat conservation. We detected two alphacoronaviruses in big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus)…
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The Canadian One Health Training Program on Emerging Zoonoses (COHTPEZ) was primarily created to develop a connected community of highly skilled researchers, professionals, and leaders in various disciplines. Several WILD-EPI trainees were awarded Canopy scholarships and internships. Help us in congratulating the Canopy 2024-2025 cohort!
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Mubareka Lab, Biological Sciences, Sunnybrook Research Institute (University of Toronto), Toronto, Ontario, Canada. We are seeking applications for a post-doctoral fellow (PDF) position to work on highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus in a biocontainment laboratory/experimental setting using a One Health approach. Specifically, we are seeking individuals interested in leading a project on…
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The USask alumni award is one of University of Saskatchewan’s highest honours. This award recognizes a young alumnus/alumna who is making significant personal and professional contributions in society, resulting in a demonstrable betterment of their community, and setting an example for fellow and future alumni to follow. Congratulations Arinjay!
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One Health is an integrated approach that aims to balance and optimize the interconnectedness of the health of humans, animals, and ecosystems. Using this transdisciplinary approach, experts from across Canada led the formation of the Wildlife Emerging Pathogens Initiative (Wild EPI) to undertake research and surveillance programs evaluating the potential risks of emerging…
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The overarching theme of our research is zoonotic viruses and how they transmit between humans and animals. From a broader conceptual perspective, one of the challenges has really been shifting the paradigm around how we think about health. We still put a disproportionate amount of emphasis on human health and fail to recognize…
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Links: Wildlife Conservation Society Canada Conservation Ontario
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Our wildlife surveillance program identified lineage B.1.641, highlighting the zoonotic nature of SARS-CoV-2. The virus’s broad host range and efficient transmission raise concerns about reverse zoonosis, potentially transmitting the virus back to non-human animals.
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“The first sign of trouble was that the mink stopped eating, said Hugh Hildebrandt, one of two main mink vets in Wisconsin. Next came coughing and sneezing, lethargy and labored breathing. Hildebrandt had worked with mink for 30 years. He wrote the Merck Veterinary Manual section on mink. But he had never seen…
