Sep 29, 2023
A new study from a team of EPIC members has uncovered the biological reasons underlying sex differences in COVID-19 outcomes and is offering a promising new strategy to prevent illness. Early on during the pandemic, clinicians quickly noticed that males were more likely than females to be hospitalized or admitted to the ICU or to die from COVID-19 despite having similar infection rates. This pattern held true across all age groups and in countries around the world. The research, conducted in mice and published in the journal iScience, points to the ACE2 protein as a key contributor to differences in COVID-19 outcomes between males and females.
May 11, 2023
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.
Apr 17, 2023
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.
Nov 10, 2022
A team of researchers led by EPIC member Samira Mubareka has characterized a new, highly divergent variant of SARS-CoV-2 in Ontario white-tailed deer. They also found the first evidence of deer-to-human transmission.
Aug 31, 2022
Samira Mubareka is a clinician scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute and an infectious diseases physician and medical microbiologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.
