High containment tools: translational virology [Funder: Institutional Funding]

Our ability to isolate infectious virus from clinical samples at Sunnybrook allows us to share samples as needed within the Canadian research and diagnostic community. This work builds significant capacity for other investigators focused on translational and fundamental questions around vaccine and antiviral development and host-pathogen response, which depend on whole live or inactivated virus. For this effort, we intend to fortify the current capacity in the containment level 3 (CL3; located at the University of Toronto) with intra-mural genome sequencing and analysis, which will leverage the tools established in the Frontline just-in time pathogenomics and high containment translational tools for COVID-19 (project 1 A.). In addition to providing a resource to the Canadian research community, we propose to use the CL3 animal facility to establish animal models for vaccine and therapeutic medical countermeasure development.