Volume 8 • 2021 • Issue 2

In Conversation: The Virologist Dr. Jason Kindrachuk Assistant professor and Canada Research Chair, Laboratory of Emerging and Re-Emerging Viruses, University of Manitoba Q Can you tell us about the kind of work you do? Dr. Jason Kindrachuk (JK) : Most of my background is in emerging viruses, working both in high containment labs and in the field. Prior to COVID, I focused primary on ebolaviruses and influenza viruses. I've also worked with coronaviruses in the past. When COVID-19 hit, many of us tried to find ways to work collaboratively to better understand what was happening on a cellular level during the course of the disease. But I was somewhat limited because my lab was closed since most of Winnipeg was shut down completely, including the University of Manitoba. However, in July, colleagues at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan invited me to come help with their COVID research efforts in their high containment laboratory. Our work in the lab is to learn what we can about how the virus causes disease. Then we try to provide cogent messaging to the public and to policy makers as we get new results and try to understand how our findings might help inform public health. Q What are you currently working on in the lab? JK : COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) is a challenging virus to track. It is novel and has the ability to move through a community very quickly under the radar. Some infected people may have no symptoms but can still transmit the virus to others, while other infected people require hospitalization. Why do some people have no symptoms and other people have fatal infections? While we have a better understanding of what happens during disease, we don’t completely understand what differentiates mild or asymptomatic disease from severe or fatal disease. That is something that we are trying to figure out in the laboratory. I’m looking at the cells of people who have underlying co-morbidities, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. I examine the differences between how the virus interacts with To hear more from Dr. Kindrachuk, visit CDA Oasis: bit.ly/3qRbsPI 32 | 2021 | Issue 2