Appointments and Affiliations

• Clinician scientist, biological sciences - Veterans Research Program, Sunnybrook Research Institute
• Microbiologist, Microbiology, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
• Infectious Diseases Consultant, Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
• Assistant Professor, Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto

Research Foci

• Influenza virus and coronavirus
• One Health
• Emerging viral pathogens
• Transmission
• Medical Microbiology

Research Summary

Since completing her research fellowship at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 2009, Dr. Mubareka has continued to study themes of viral transmission and spread through three research lines of inquiry:

• In vitro and in vivo experimental bioaerosols emitted by naturally-infected hosts to explore the determinants of bioaerosol generation and survival. Through a clinical and occupational health lens, Dr. Mubareka has conducted studies examining bioaerosol generation by patients with laboratory-confirmed influenza and SARS-CoV-2.

• In close collaboration with animal health colleagues at the University of Guelph and the National Centre for Animal Diseases (NCFAD), over the past 3-4 years Dr. Mubareka has focused on pathogen emergence, incorporating the characterization of influenza virus bioaerosols generated by swine in agriculture with genomics. Dr. Mubareka was also recently funded for arthropod vector-borne work in collaboration with the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) by PHAC’s Infectious Diseases and Climate Change fund, and to examine coronavirus transmission among Canadian bats (NSERC), incorporating behavioural, biological, ecological and epidemiological considerations. She has also collaborated with provincial and federal counterparts on SARS-CoV-2 infection among Canadian wildlife.

• Through her clinical and biocontainment work, Dr. Mubareka has focused on characterizing SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs).

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Mubareka and colleagues isolated the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a Level 3 containment facility, which she shared with many academic CL3 laboratories across the country.

Dr. Mubareka serves on the Chief Science Advisor of Canada’s COVID-19 Expert Panel, the Implementation Committee of the Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network (CanCOGeN) Viral Sequencing Project (Genome Canada) and the Ontario COVID-19 Science Table. She also chairs the Royal Society of Canada's One Health Working Group.