From left to right: Rob Kozak, Samira Mubareka, Inger Damon, Kanta Subbarao, Donald Sheppard, Senjuti Saha, Scott Gray-Owen and Natasha Christie-Holmes (Photo credit: Horst Herget Photography)

October 25, 2024

By, Sunitha Chari

The development of effective pandemic preparedness approaches relies on cross disciplinary research collaborations to fuel discoveries and technologies, closing the equity gap between resource- rich and -scarce regions and implementing lessons learned from past outbreaks. The aim must be to build strong local and globally connected communities capable of effectively working together when facing present and future infectious threats.

These were the themes that emerged from the second annual EPIC Symposium held on October 17 at the Toronto Reference Library. With close to 300 tickets sold, the one-day event brought together Toronto’s infectious disease community with nationally and internationally acclaimed experts to discuss the most pressing challenges in the fight against infectious diseases and solutions to address these complex problems.

The symposium kicked off with a keynote presentation by Kanta Subbarao, the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Biology and Control of Zoonotic and Pandemic Respiratory Viruses at Université Laval. She previously served as the director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza and as the chief of Emerging Respiratory Viruses Section of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. She is a thought leader on the global spread of emerging and endemic respiratory viruses and her research sheds light on the pathology of coronaviruses and influenza virus infections. Using stem cell-derived tissue models, her group was able to show the effects of SARS-CoV2 infections in cardiac and lung alveolar tissues. “Our research provides new insights into rational drug combinations for effective treatment of a disease that affects multiple organs,” she said.

Her talk also illustrated the benefit of coupling basic science with engineering – her group is developing prototype air sampling devices that can recover viable airborne infectious particles from public settings.

This marriage of molecular research and applied sciences was echoed in talks from the EPIC community.

EPIC faculty member, Nicole Weckman (University of Toronto (U of T), Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering) presented her research employing an innovative application for the CRISPR-Cas system to develop an easy to use, ultrasensitive diagnostic device to detect infectious agents. In a project funded through EPIC’s New Connections program, Weckman teamed up with Rob Kozak (Sunnybrook Health Science Centre) to develop diagnostic tools to detect Candida auris and markers of antifungal resistance.

Weckman said that a rationale for developing these novel diagnostic tools was to bridge the equity disparity in the access to diagnostic technologies that exists between resource rich countries and the rest of the world. This approach aligned with another important theme of the symposium: addressing the disparities in infectious disease research and policy responses between low- and middle-income regions and those in resource rich settings.

Andrew Pinto (Unity Health Toronto), who is funded through the Catalyst Program, jointly offered by EPIC and the Institute for Pandemics, discussed the disproportionately large impact of COVID 19 on low-income Canadians and made policy and practical recommendations to enable more equitable support for all people across all sections of the population.

This was a theme repeated by Senjuti Saha, the deputy executive director of Child Health Research Foundation in Bangladesh. She gave a keynote presentation on her pioneering discovery that chikungunya virus caused an outbreak of previously uncharacterized cases of paediatric meningitis in Bangladesh. Her talk highlighted the impact of providing expertise and research resources to investigators on the ground in low-income settings. Pathogens-of-interest also differ region to region and an unbiased approach is required to reveal locally endemic or newly emerging pathogens.

While searching for solutions, we can also look to the past. This was the highlight of a keynote talk given by Inger Damon, the retired director of the Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She shared how smallpox preparedness informed the development of diagnostic methods to detect mpox. She used the emergence and global spread of mpox as a case study to demonstrate why the international community must work together to combat what might initially be considered a regional infectious threat.

The development of novel treatment approaches to viruses with pandemic potential was underlined by a talk from Michael Norris (U of T, Temerty Faculty of Medicine) who is funded through EPIC’s Ignite program. He described his application of biophysical, biochemical and in silico modeling methods to develop novel antiviral therapies to broadly target paramyxoviruses, a group of viruses that includes measles, mumps and the deadly Nipah virus.

Overall, the day demonstrated the diverse perspectives needed tackle the burden of infectious diseases. “We foster collaborations to address challenges that run the gamut- from molecular to social,” said Scott Gray-Owen the director of EPIC and professor of molecular genetics at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. “These relationships and the interdisciplinary perspective that they provide will serve us well when we need to respond to future threats.”

The symposium also featured a ‘Lightning Round’ segment highlighting the work of eight EPIC-funded trainees, including a talk by Mohammed Simchi, the inaugural recipient of the Pfizer Canada EPIC Convergence Postdoctoral Fellowship in Vaccinology. He presented his work to develop a portable device that allows the local manufacturing of protein-based vaccines, addressing the challenges associated with both local need and global distribution for vaccines and other countermeasures.

“The presentations and discussions at the symposium helped attendees understand the breadth of work undertaken by Toronto’s infectious disease community and provided many opportunities to meet, share and spark new ideas,” said Natasha Christie-Holmes, EPIC’s director of Strategy & Partnerships.

At the close of the day, the keynote speakers came together for a panel discussion on global engagement on infectious diseases and pandemic preparedness, which was chaired by Donald Sheppard, vice president of the Infectious Diseases and Vaccination Programs branch of the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Sheppard emphasized the need to resolve data challenges in surveillance and tracking systems to more effectively deploy interventions such as therapeutics and vaccines. The panelists highlighted that surveillance efforts also need to be matched by the appropriate mobilization of biomanufacturing capacity; a key weakness identified after the COVID 19 pandemic. In this regard, Sheppard highlighted federal initiatives including Health Emergency Readiness Canada, which aims to bridge the gap between research and commercialization to develop effective countermeasures against identified infectious threats.

The panelists were unified in their belief that collaboration between different stakeholders across the global landscape, including researchers, policy makers, public agencies and industry partners is essential to building resilient and robust countermeasures to both existing and future infectious disease threats. They also noted that community engagement through reliable science communication platforms and local community members, is required to combat misinformation so that these countermeasures can be effectively deployed.

“Today’s discussions highlight why EPIC’s efforts to link Toronto’s infectious disease research community with our global colleagues are so important. We have the expertise, the ingenuity and the desire to help, but we must be globally engaged to understand where, when and how to become involved so that we can help stop threats as they emerge rather than waiting until they are on our doorstep,” said Gray-Owen.