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EPIC announces recipients of its inaugural Inspire Summer Studentships
The Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) has announced the four recipients of the 2023 Inspire Summer Studentships. These studentships aim to foster inclusive excellence by providing third-year Black and Indigenous undergraduate students with opportunities to engage in infectious disease research with and receive mentorship from EPIC’s faculty members. Each award provides $7,500 to support the student for a 16-week work term.
The COVID-19 global health emergency has ended. Here’s what U of T experts think.
On Friday, March 5, the World Health Organization declared the end of the COVID-19 global health emergency. We polled faculty members of the Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) and the Institute for Pandemics (IfP), two pandemic-focused Institutional Strategic Initiatives at the University of Toronto, to get their perspectives on the WHO’s decision and where we need to go from here.
Boosting immune memory to enhance protection against flu
Karen Yeung is leading critical research to understand how our immune systems respond to influenza infection and how we might be able to leverage that knowledge to create a long-lasting, universal flu vaccine. A fourth-year PhD student in the department of immunology at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, Yeung is one of 31 recipients of the inaugural Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) Doctoral Awards, which supports outstanding students pursuing infectious disease research.
On the path to malaria elimination, EPIC researchers lead with innovations designed for impact
According to the World Health Organization’s World Malaria Report 2022, 247 million people fell ill with malaria in 2021. In the same year, there were an estimated 619,000 deaths due to the disease, with three out of four deaths in children aged under five. With the right prevention tools and treatments, the WHO’s ambitious targets of reducing global malaria incidence and mortality rates by at least 90% by 2030 can become reality and accelerate progress towards eradication. Getting there requires innovations that have been purposely designed with implementation and impact in mind. Through their work on new diagnostics, vaccines and treatments, EPIC members are doing just that.
Examining the COVID-19 pandemic through a person-centred lens
As a recipient of the inaugural Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) Doctoral Awards, which supports outstanding students pursuing infectious disease research, Afia Amoako is driven by her person-centred ethos to examine the unequal landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto. Her goal? To provide a deeper, more nuanced understanding of how people living in this city experienced COVID-19.
EPIC announces 31 recipients of its inaugural Doctoral Awards
The Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) has announced its inaugural cohort of Doctoral Awards recipients. These 31 PhD students are engaged in innovative and collaborative research on infectious diseases. Their work spans from fundamental research uncovering the inner workings of microbes and their interactions with hosts, to applied research focused on improving diagnostics and vaccines, to community-based research on the social and economic impacts of infectious diseases.
How worried should I be about bird flu? An expert Q&A with Samira Mubareka
Last week, the city of Brampton confirmed that two dead waterfowl found in the city had tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus, or bird flu. According to the latest estimates from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, over 7 million birds in flocks across the country have been impacted by HPAI, including nearly 750,000 in Ontario. To learn more about the bird flu outbreak and what we can do to prepare, we spoke to Samira Mubareka, an infectious diseases physician, medical microbiologist and scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute.
World TB Day: How EPIC researchers are creating better vaccines for tuberculosis and uncovering its financial burden for patients and families
Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the world’s most deadly infectious threats and a significant global health challenge. The World Health Organization estimates that in 2021, 10.6 million people became sick with the disease and 1.6 million people died of TB, which is both preventable and curable. Learn more about how members of the University of Toronto’s Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium are working to tackle TB from multiple angles, from creating better vaccines to gaining a deeper understanding of TB’s financial toll on patients and families.
Member Spotlight: Sarah Haines
For this month’s member spotlight, we caught up with Sarah Haines, an assistant professor in the department of civil and mineral engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. Sarah’s research is on building science and indoor environmental quality with a particular focus on indoor air quality and the indoor microbiome. We also talk about her work with Indigenous communities to improve housing and drinking water quality.