Samira Mubareka

Dr. Samira Mubareka, MD, FRCPC is a Canadian microbiologist based in Toronto, Ontario. She is a clinical scientist at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, and professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathobiology at the University of Toronto.¹⁾ She works as the Infectious Diseases Lead at the Centre for Research Expertise in Occupational Diseases.²⁾

She serves as chair of the Royal Society of Canada's Working Group on One Health.³⁾

Mubareka was born in Gottingen, Germany, and her family immigrated to a small town in northwestern New Brunswick when she was two.⁴⁾

Mubareka received her undergraduate degree from the University of New Brunswick.⁵⁾ She completed her MD at Dalhousie University in 1999 and Internal Medicine training in 2002 at McGill University in Canada. She specialized in infectious diseases and medical microbiology at the University of Manitoba, graduating in 2005.

She went on to a research fellowship at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City, in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Palese in the Department of Microbiology, finishing in 2009. While there, she focused on the development of a novel animal model for the transmission of influenza virus, developing an interest around the aerobiology of virus transmission, which remains a focus of her work.

In March 2020, the University of Toronto announced that Mubareka had isolated the SARS-CoV-2 virus along with teammate Robert Kozak and McMaster University researcher Arinjay Banerjee.⁶⁾ According to the press release, the team had “culture[d] the virus from two clinical specimens in a level three containment facility.” Allegedly, “Mubareka and Kozak collected specimens of the coronavirus from the first confirmed case in Canada, an adult male who was treated and eventually discharged from Sunnybrook after returning from Wuhan, China – the epicentre of the outbreak.”⁷⁾ They collaborated with Allison McGeer from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health in order to develop testing capabilities for the virus.

On March 10, 2020, Mubareka participated in the convening of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada's COVID-19 Expert Panel.^{8) 9)}

In April 2020, Genome Canada announced the formation of the Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network (CanCOGen).¹⁰⁾ Mubareka serves on the project's Coordinating Committee, and on the Implementation Committee for CanCOGen's VirusSeq (Virus Sequencing Project).¹¹⁾ Following a $1 million donation from QuestCap, Mubareka formed the Sunnybrook Translational Research Program for Emerging and Respiratory Viruses (SERV) to focus on viral genomics, transmission and the development of medical countermeasures.^{12) 13)}

In May 2020, Mubareka was included on a poster featuring “Women of COVID” alongside Janice Fitzgerald, Theresa Tam, Heather Morrison, Bonnie Henry, Barbara Yaffe, Jennifer Russell, Shelby Yamamoto, and Deena Hinshaw.¹⁴⁾ This and a second poster in 2021 were produced by the Canadian Science and Technology Museum through their Women in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics initiative.¹⁵⁾

Mubareka served as a founding member of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table upon its creation in July 2020 until its dissolution in September 2022.^{16) 17)} She is also a member of the steering committee for the Ontario’s COVID-19 Genomics Rapid Response Coalition (ONCoV) under Ontario Genomics.^{18) 19)}

She serves as Chair of the Ontario Academic Health Sciences SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing Network (ONS2).

Mubareka's research interests lie in infectious diseases & immunopathology.²⁰⁾ She has worked closely with animal health colleagues at the University of Guelph and the National Centre for Animal Diseases (NCFAD).²¹⁾ She also received funding 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 (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council), incorporating behavioural, biological, ecological and epidemiological considerations.

She has received funding from PHAC for orthobunyavirus research related to climate change and infectious diseases.²²⁾

The viral sequence allegedly isolated by Mubareka and colleagues is now the principle source of SARS-CoV-2 to most academic CL3 laboratories across the country.²³⁾

Mubareka participated in two World Health Organization-commissioned reviews to inform use of high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) in patients with COVID-19. The work was funded by the WHO and organized through the MAGIC Evidence Ecosystem Foundation.²⁴⁾

She additionally contributed to a study on spike protein antigens in saliva, funded by the Ontario Together Fund, as well as RBC (Royal Bank of Canada), Questcap and Krembil Foundation through the Sinai Health Foundation.²⁵⁾

She participated in pre-clinical research on Providence Therapeutics' mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.²⁶⁾

She co-authored a study on Twitter activity related to vaccine hesitancy and support for COVID-19 vaccines from January 2020 to January 2021, with “positive being the dominant polarity and having higher engagements. The amount of discussion on vaccine rejection and hesitancy was more than interest in vaccines during the course of the study, but the pattern was different in various countries.”²⁷⁾

In October 2007, Mubareka co-authored a study on influenza's transmission relative to humidity and temperature. The paper was edited by Ralph Baric.²⁸⁾

In January 2009, Mubareka co-authored a study exploring two amino acids that improve transmission of influenza from animals to humans. This was also edited by Ralph Baric.²⁹⁾

Mubarek's sources of research funding include:

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)³⁰⁾
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Consortium de recherche biopharmaceutique
• MAGIC Evidence Ecosystem Foundation
• National Microbiology Laboratory (NML)
• Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)
• Providence Therapeutics
• Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)
• Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
• University of Guelph
• W. M. Keck Foundation
• World Health Organization (WHO)

• White Rose Wiki