uOttawa medical scientist leading team bolstering Canada's ability to respond to future pandemics, public health emergencies

(Press-News.org) With $3M in new federal funding over two years, University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine molecular virologist Dr. Marc-André Langlois and a multidisciplinary team of collaborators will be a vital part of Canada’s ability to respond effectively to infectious disease threats & future pandemics.

With this investment from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the national network of experts led by Dr. Langlois will be able to support large-scale scientific research, protect vulnerable communities, and strengthen the country’s ability to face future health emergencies.

It’s part of a nearly $20M funding package to support research platforms that unite researchers from across Canada to bolster the nation’s pandemic readiness and response capabilities. In the wake of the COVID‑19 pandemic, the Canadian government pushed to support infrastructure that could rapidly pivot to deal with emerging health threats.

Central to that mission has been the pioneering work of Dr. Langlois, a world-class scientist based at the uOttawa Faculty of Medicine who took a prominent national leadership role at the helm of the Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network (CoVaRR‑Net), backed by funding from the CIHR.

The cutting-edge “Serology and Diagnostics High-Throughput Facility” (SD-HTF) Dr. Langlois created at the uOttawa Faculty of Medicine during the height of the global pandemic was a central player in the national coronavirus response. (In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Langlois swiftly retooled his lab and focused his research on developing new diagnostic tools including serological assays, new therapeutics and a plant-derived nasal spray vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.)

Detecting & tracking infectious disease threats

Now, moving forward, uOttawa’s High-Throughput Facility infrastructure – situated in a secure restricted-access biocontainment level 2+ (CL2+) lab at uOttawa’s Faculty of Medicine – will be a cornerstone of Canada’s pandemic preparedness plan so the nation can be as ready as possible for any future pandemics and public health emergencies that crop up.

Dr. Langlois says the collaborative team’s overarching goal is to “sustain the operations and readiness of a national research platform that can rapidly detect and track new infectious disease threats while protecting vulnerable people and communities.”

The High-Throughput Facility created by Dr. Langlois is highly unique. It’s the “only academic, infectious-disease-focused high-throughput diagnostic facility in Canada capable of handling population-scale studies,” he says, and it can also support expansive clinical trials such as evaluating vaccines or new antiviral drugs.

“The uOttawa Serology and Diagnostics High-Throughput Facility ensures Canada is prepared to face the next health emergency with real-time evidence to guide public health action, while also supporting homegrown discoveries and technologies that require population-scale testing,” says Dr. Langlois, a full professor in the Faculty’s Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology.

Preparing to face a future health emergency with real-time evidence

How does Dr. Langlois, who holds the Faculty of Medicine Chair of Excellence in Pandemic Viruses and Preparedness Research, define success for this pandemic preparedness research platform?

“Success over the next two years will mean keeping our teams and infrastructure running at full capacity, expanding testing to cover threats like avian influenza and other emerging diseases, and delivering timely infectious-disease data that directly informs Canada’s public health policies and preparedness plans,” he says.

The platform that Dr. Langlois will steer as principal investigator will bring together a network that extends across Canada. Locally, it includes top scientific talent from the University of Ottawa, The Ottawa Hospital and the Bruyère Research Institute.

“Together, this collaborative network allows us to work across disciplines and translate scientific discoveries into coordinated national responses more quickly and effectively,” Dr. Langlois says.

In a government press release, Dr. Paul Hébert, CIHR president and a uOttawa Faculty of Medicine professor, described the initiatives being funded as reflecting "the best of Canadian research."

END