Dr. Kubes’ research examines complex immune responses in the context of human clinical disease.

Using cutting-edge technology to image cellular behaviours in real time, the Kubes Laboratory directly visualizes the roles of immune cells during inflammation, infection and tissue injury - leading the way to understanding how immune cells function under physiological and pathological disease states.

Host: Dr. Brent Johnston

The rapid manufacture of COVID-19 vaccine is often presented as an unprecedented event, but a yellow fever vaccine was produced in the 1930s and massively applied in record time. Medical historian and biologist Dr. Ilana Löwy will share the fascinating story of the 17D vaccine and how two drastically different approaches to its surveillance led to success in one country and a major health disaster in another.

Dr. Paul Kubes began his research as a graduate student at Queen's University in 1984 in the area of Cardiovascular Physiology. In 1988 he moved to Louisiana State University (LSU) Medical Center to start a post-doctoral fellowship trying to understand why there is excessive inflammation associated with heart attacks and strokes. Dr. Kubes took a position as Assistant Professor in 1991 at the University of Calgary and continued to investigate the mechanisms leading to white cell recruitment in cardiovascular disorders. Dr. Kubes and his team identified that an endogenously produced gas, nitric oxide, functions to reduce leukocyte recruitment. This work has subsequently branched out into areas of infection and autoimmunity and he was one of the first to use inhaled NO as a potential therapy. This could impact the fields of cardiovascular disease, cancer and infections: the three major killers globally and locally. Dr. Kubes was appointed as the Snyder Research Chair in Critical Care Medicine and has used the money to develop and operate a translational laboratory that supports critical care clinical trials with molecular lab tests. In collaboration with a number of the critical care physicians, numerous discoveries about the biology of the immune system in sepsis have been published in Science, Nature Medicine, Nature Immunology, Immunity and Journal of Experimental Medicine. More recently his focus is imaging the host responses to infections with particular interest in how the immune system deals with pathogens in blood or Intravascular Immunity.

Dr. Kubes is presently a full professor at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine. In addition to this, he is also an AHFMR scientist, a Canada Research Chair, and the founding Director of the new Snyder Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation. Together with a group of nine other professors at the University of Calgary, and with the help of a substantial grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, he has also created a training program geared towards elucidating the cellular, molecular, and physiologic mechanisms of infectious and immune disease and a clinical program entitled the AHFMR Alberta Sepsis Network. Any patient that enters an Alberta ICU enters this program. Dr. Kubes sits on national and international grant panels and presently sits on numerous editorial boards including The Journal of Clinical Investigation and Journal of Experimental Medicine. Awards include the Henry Friesen Award (the top clinical research award), the ASTech leader in Alberta Science Award and the only Canadian to receive the Bowditch Lecture Award.

https://www.ucalgary.ca/paulkubeslab/

Host: Dr. Brent Johnston

Eve Dubé obtained her PhD in medical anthropology at Laval University. In addition of being a researcher in the infectious and immune diseases research area of the Centre de recherche du CHU de Québec-Laval University, she is an invited professor in the department of Anthropology at Laval University. Since 2008, she is also a researcher in the Scientific Group on Immunization at the Quebec National Institute of Public Health.

Being a specialist of qualitative methods, her research focuses on the socio-cultural field surrounding infectious diseases prevention. She is particularly interested in vaccine hesitancy. She has led various projects in Quebec, Canada and in other countries to better understand why parents are hesitant toward vaccination and why some health professionals have doubts regarding vaccination. From 2012 to 2014, she was a member of the World Health Organization working group on Vaccine Hesitancy. Dr. Dubé is currently leading the Social Sciences and Humanities Network of the Canadian Immunization Research Network, funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. She is also interested in translational research and is leading projects on this issue, mainly around nosocomial infections prevention.

https://www.canvax.ca/eve-dube

Host: Dr. Jennifer Isenor

Dr. Neal Silverman is part of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School  and is also a member of the Program In Innate Immunity (PII), an interdisciplinary and interdepartmental group of investigators who are focused on discovering the underlying mechanisms that drive immune defenses and inflammation, in both health and disease.

https://www.umassmed.edu/silverman-lab/

Host: Dr. Francesca Di Cara

Influenza A viruses pose a major public health risk from seasonal epidemics and sporadic pandemics. Our lab studies the molecular properties contributing to the epidemiological success of influenza A viruses to better predict future pandemics. There are two main areas of research in my lab 1) exploring the intracellular dynamics of influenza viral RNA assembly and 2) defining the viral properties necessary for efficient airborne transmission of influenza viruses.

Influenza A viruses contain eight single stranded RNA segments. Reassortment of the influenza viral genome in co-infected cells confers an evolutionary advantage for the virus, and can result in viruses with pandemic potential like the 2009 pandemic H1N1 and 2013 H7N9 virus. Replication of the viral genome occurs in the nucleus of the host cell and the progeny viral RNA (vRNA) segments must be transported to the plasma membrane for budding. The dynamics of vRNA assembly into progeny virions remains unknown. We used sophisticated microscopy techniques to visualize the 3D-localization of four distinct vRNA segments in an infected cell and a fluorescent virus to visualize vRNA transport during a productive infection to determine where, when and how assembly occurs. Our data suggest that vRNA segments are exported from the nucleus as subcomplexes that undergo additional assembly en-route to the plasma membrane through dynamic fusion events of vRNA-containing cytoplasmic foci. These observations have broad implications for understanding the intracellular requirements behind reassortment of influenza viruses and may lead to the development of new antiviral targets.

Airborne transmission of influenza viruses is critical for rapid spread of the virus during epidemics and pandemics. We have established a method to study the transmissibility of influenza viruses via the airborne route using ferrets, which are naturally susceptible to human influenza viruses. Using a loss-of-function approach we will define the viral properties necessary for transmission of seasonal H1N1 and H3N2 viruses. In addition, we will test the role of different therapeutic platforms on limiting the spread of influenza via aerosols.

Combining these two areas of research we will be able to develop a comprehensive surveillance system to determine the pandemic potential of circulating zoonotic influenza viruses, which will be useful in all areas of pandemic preparedness. 

https://lakdawalalab.com

Host: Dr. Denys Khaperskyy