We are excited to announce that the first annual Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium symposium will take place on October 17, 2023 at the Old Mill Toronto! Please join us for a day of research, networking and community-building.

The symposium is free to attend for anyone who is affiliated with one of EPIC’s partner institutes (the Hospital for Sick Children, Sinai Health/Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre/Sunnybrook Research Institute, Unity Health Toronto, University Health Network, University of Toronto).

If you are not affiliated with an EPIC partner and would like to attend, please send us a message at epic@utoronto.ca.

If you are an industry or government representative and are interested in supporting this event and/or attending, please send us a message at epic@utoronto.ca.

Registration is now open to EPIC members! To reserve your spot, check your email for your early access code and register at Eventbrite.

Registration to non-members will open on September 11.

Symposium agenda

TIME	EVENT
8:00 – 8:45 am	Registration Coffee and a light breakfast will be served.
8:45 – 9:00 am	Opening remarks
9:00 – 10:45 am	Session #1: Emerging pathogen surveillance and response Silence = Death: How community engagement was central to research and public health during Ontario’s mpox response  Darrell Tan, Unity Health Toronto Emerging infectious diseases threats during pregnancy: building systems of surveillance and response Vanessa Allen, Sinai Health Alphacoronaviruses in bats in eastern Ontario, Canada Jonathon Kotwa, Sunnybrook Research Institute Distributed, low-burden diagnostics: an emerging role for synthetic biology and low-cost hardware  Keith Pardee, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, U of T Empowering communities: education and outreach in Toronto’s Black community during the COVID-19 pandemic Upton Allen, Hospital for Sick Children
10:45 – 11:00 am	Coffee break
11:00 am – 12:00 pm	Lightning round: Meet the new PIs Roger Antabe, Department of Health and Society, U of T Scarborough Aereas Aung, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, U of T Artem Babaian, Department of Molecular Genetics, U of T Marcus Dillon, Department of Biology, U of T Mississauga  Guillaume Filion, Department of Cell and Systems Biology, U of T Scarborough Greg German, Unity Health Toronto Sarah Haines, Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering, U of T Bowen Li, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, U of T Mike Norris, Department of Biochemistry, U of T Kathryn Rozen-Gagnon, Department of Molecular Genetics, U of T Nicole Weckman, Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, U of T Alice Zhabokritsky, University Health Network
12:00 – 1:00 pm	Lunch
1:00 – 2:00 pm	Keynote presentation: Lessons learned from reporting at the pandemic’s front lines Lauren Pelley, senior health and medical reporter, CBC
2:00 – 3:00 pm	Panel discussion: Breaking the cycle of panic and neglect to create sustained readiness to infectious threats Moderator: Lauren Pelley (senior health and medical reporter, CBC) Panelists: Leah Cowen (University of Toronto), David Naylor
3:00 – 3:15 pm	Coffee break
3:15 – 5:00 pm	Session #2: Development and implementation of innovative countermeasures Flow virometry: a new lens for virus-based therapies & vaccines Christina Guzzo, Department of Cell and Systems Biology, U of T Scarborough Bio-inspired surfaces to prevent microbial attachment Ben Hatton, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, U of T Using stem cell-derived macrophages to combat pulmonary viral infections Michael Litvack, Hospital for Sick Children Lessons learned from studying T cell responses following SARS-CoV-2 infection or vaccination Tania Watts, Department of Immunology, U of T Understanding COVID-19’s inner workings and new treatment approaches Haibo Zhang, Unity Health Toronto
5:00 – 7:00 pm	Networking reception and poster session