News & Updates
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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!