{"id":26760,"date":"2014-09-25T14:17:35","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T06:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=26760"},"modified":"2025-01-28T18:51:47","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T23:51:47","slug":"why-winnipeg-how-canadas-national-lab-became-an-ebola-research-powerhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/09\/25\/why-winnipeg-how-canadas-national-lab-became-an-ebola-research-powerhouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Winnipeg? How Canada\u2019s national lab became an Ebola research powerhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dr.<\/a>
Dr. Frank Plummer. Screenshot from YouTube<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO\u2014When Dr. Frank Plummer talks about the first experimental Ebola drug used in an outbreak, he pronounces it \u201cZed Map.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do it consciously,\u201d says Plummer, who retired this year after serving for nearly 14 years as the head of Canada\u2019s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n

The rest of the\u00a0world\u00a0says the first letter of the drug ZMapp the way Americans do, calling the concoction of three Ebola antibodies \u201cZee Map.\u201d But the cocktail was created in Winnipeg and Plummer thinks the name of a made-in-Canada drug ought to pronounced the Canadian way.<\/p>\n

Winnipeg. Half a\u00a0world\u00a0away from the countries in Africa where Ebola, and its viral cousin, Marburg, occasionally slip out of their animal reservoir to start infecting and killing people, as Ebola is now doing in West Africa.<\/p>\n

They are two of the worst viruses known to humankind, as evidenced by the current outbreak, which has infected at least 5,335 people and killed at least 2,622. To date, fortunately, there has never been a case of either viral hemorrhagic fever infections within Canadian borders.<\/p>\n

So why then is Canada\u2019s national lab an Ebola research powerhouse? Why is a facility on the edge of the Prairies, near North America\u2019s longitudinal centre, the site from whence some of the most promising Ebola research emanates?<\/p>\n

What research? Well, there\u2019s ZMapp, the most promising of the current experimental treatments. There\u2019s also an Ebola vaccine that may be useful both to prevent infection and stop it in its tracks, if given shortly after exposure. And a mobile diagnostic lab that has changed the way outbreak testing is done.<\/p>\n

These are enormous contributions to the scientific efforts to prevent or contain Ebola. And the fact that they come from Winnipeg seems to come down to a few good men.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

If you ask why Winnipeg\u2014why Canada?\u2014is such a player in Ebola research, the instant answer comes in the form of two names\u2014Heinz Feldmann, the lab\u2019s first special pathogen\u2019s chief and Gary Kobinger, his successor and the current branch chief. They are indeed key players in the Winnipeg lab\u2019s Ebola story.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth of these guys are absolutely\u00a0world\u00a0class. I can\u2019t say enough good things about them. They are both superb scientists and in addition to being superb scientists they are great individuals,\u201d says Jim LeDuc, director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch, which also employs key Ebola researchers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have the right attitude. They\u2019re collaborative, they\u2019re co-operative, they share their information readily and they have a global perspective. And they know exactly what needs to be done. And they\u2019re incredibly well respected within the scientific community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the story doesn\u2019t begin with Feldmann and Kobinger.<\/p>\n

When the federal government decided to build in Winnipeg a new, state-of-the-art laboratory to replace aging Health Canada facilities in Ottawa, it was not immediately clear the complex would contain a Level 4 lab, the high containment space needed to work on the\u00a0world\u2019s most dangerous pathogens.<\/p>\n

The Ottawa facility had not had one, meaning that any time Canada had to test a specimen that might contain a Level 4 bug, it was forced to ship the sample to the labs of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga.<\/p>\n

This was the early 1990s and concern about emerging infectious diseases was front-burner. The U.S. Institute of Medicine had issued its seminal report \u201cEmerging Infections: Microbial Threats to Health in the United States\u201d in 1992. \u201cThe Hot Zone,\u201d Richard Preston\u2019s Ebola page turner, and Laurie Garrett\u2019s \u201cThe Coming Plague\u201d were burning up bestseller lists a few years later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really felt that to be properly prepared for all of the possible diseases that we were seeing spreading … that it was better and wise for Canada to have a Level 4 lab,\u201d recalls Dr. Harvey Artsob, who was then the head of zoonotic diseases for what became the National Microbiology Laboratory, or NML, as the scientists call it.<\/p>\n

Dr. Joseph Losof, then director general of Health Canada\u2019s Laboratory Centre for Disease Control, gave the go-ahead.<\/p>\n

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The search began for someone to head the special pathogens team.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Lab leaders keenly wanted a young German researcher who was working in Marburg, German, but who had recently spent time at the CDC. Heinz Feldmann, who had started his career studying influenza, had moved on to researching Ebola and Marburg (the virus is named after the German town where he was working).<\/p>\n

Feldmann was finding it tough to get the funding and support his work needed. He wanted to move on. But Winnipeg wasn\u2019t his only suitor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we wanted Heinz. We thought he was a good fit for the lab, which he absolutely was,\u201d Artsob, who is now retired, recalls.<\/p>\n

The lab flew Feldmann to Winnipeg to meet NML leaders. He liked what he saw, even though the first trip occurred in December. \u201cWhen I came home I told my wife… \u2018It\u2019s bitterly cold out there.\u2019 But she said \u2018That\u2019s fine\u2019 and that\u2019s how I got to Winnipeg,\u201d Feldmann says.<\/p>\n

Actually, it was not quite that easy. Artsob recalls being warned in December 1997 by LeDuc\u2014then at CDC and advising Health Canada on the new lab\u2014that Feldmann wasn\u2019t going to make the move.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember Jim saying to me: \u2018Harvey, give it up. Heinz will not leave Europe. Heinz will not be coming.\u2019 That was my low point,\u201d Artsob says. \u201cBut in fact Heinz accepted a few months after.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe suited Canada and Winnipeg so well.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

NML suited Feldmann too. He liked the idea of starting his own lab, building up his own program, rather than taking over an existing one. As well, he\u2019d been impressed by how supportive the environment appeared to be. And he was drawn to the mandate: Do science, but also do public health.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the feeling that the leadership would be basically willing to put it in the people\u2019s hands, in our hands, to build this program up under the condition that we have to fulfil the public health portion of it. And that was something I learned at CDC and found very interesting, being an M.D. by training,\u201d says Feldmann, who left Winnipeg in 2008 to become chief scientist for Level 4 laboratories at the U.S. National Institute of Health\u2019s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Mont.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Under Feldmann, the Winnipeg lab created Ebola and Marburg vaccines that are widely thought to be highly promising. Between 800 and 1,000 vials of the Ebola vaccine, called VSV-EBOV, have been donated to the\u00a0World\u00a0Health Organization and will be used in this outbreak, if preliminary trials show it is safe in humans. (It is effective and safe in non-human primates.)<\/p>\n

The team also created a mobile laboratory, a low-tech but safe lab-in-a-suitcase that has revolutionized how testing is done in the remote locations where Ebola and Marburg outbreaks typically occur.<\/p>\n

Plummer says the idea originated in the uncertain days after 9\/11, when anthrax-laced envelopes were mailed to\u00a0news\u00a0outlets and Congressional offices in the United States. Suspicious mail was found in New Brunswick, but no carrier was willing to transport it to Winnipeg. So NML had to send scientists to New Brunswick to do the testing. (It wasn\u2019t anthrax.)<\/p>\n

The mobile lab\u2014and the team to run it\u2014was offered to the WHO during an Ebola outbreak in 2002 or 2003, Artsob says. Diagnostic testing is critical in Ebola outbreaks, because in its early stages the disease is indistinguishable from malaria and other common ailments. Figuring out who has Ebola and separating them from people who don\u2019t is how outbreaks are contained.<\/p>\n

Prior to the creation of Winnipeg\u2019s mobile lab, the CDC took care of testing, setting up a more elaborate laboratory, generally in an outbreak country\u2019s capital. Specimens needed to be driven from affected villages to the lab, which on African roads can add hours or days to the diagnostic process.<\/p>\n

The mobile lab could be set up where the sick people were.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce they (WHO) deployed us the first time I think they realized that the on site thing was giving some advantage,\u201d Feldmann says, noting that a lab technician named Allen Grolla who is still with NML was instrumental in devising the mobile lab.<\/p>\n

The Winnipeg mobile lab has been deployed by the WHO during most subsequent Ebola and Marburg outbreaks. And many other countries have copied the model. A number of other mobile labs are in the Ebola zone helping with the current epidemic.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Also instrumental in Winnipeg\u2019s success was Plummer, a seasoned HIV scientist with years in the field who returned to Canada to take over as head of the new lab in 2001.<\/p>\n

A scientist\u2019s scientist, Plummer was a Winnipeg native, eager to help his facility make a global mark.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that Frank\u2019s motto is: Set your people free. And I think basically he created the environment here,\u201d says Kobinger, the rising star in Ebola research.<\/p>\n

Says Feldmann: \u201cI hardly have ever seen anybody that was more supportive than Frank.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis expectations were high. But he would support any way whatsoever. It was up to you to make something out of it. You always knew you had his support\u2014unless you did something very stupid or something disastrous. But otherwise, you had his support.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Another thing about Plummer: He was always keen to bring top Canadian scientists home.<\/p>\n

Gary Kobinger\u2014born in Europe but raised in Quebec\u2014was working on an Ebola vaccine at the University of Pennsylvania. He approached Feldmann about collaborating, and ended up splitting his time between Philadelphia and the Level 4 labs of Winnipeg.<\/p>\n

\u201cHeinz basically introduced Gary to me saying \u2018He\u2019s a really good guy, it would be great if we could find a job for him,\u201d Plummer says. \u201cSo I hired him and it was one of the smartest things I ever did.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Feldmann was lured away to the U.S., Kobinger became his successor. \u201cI think with Gary they found the perfect person to run that project,\u201d Feldmann says.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Kobinger has continued work on the Ebola vaccine. But it is with something known as monoclonal antibodies where he\u2019s made a major mark.<\/p>\n

Our immune systems produce a soup of antibodies to protect against various invaders. But scientists try to figure out which specific ones target a given pathogen, then grow up lots of that individual antibody. Those are called monoclonals.<\/p>\n

Kobinger and his team produced a cocktail of three Ebola monoclonals that looked promising against the virus in animal testing. Scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Md., were also working on a monoclonal cocktail of three antibodies. There was no overlap between the two.<\/p>\n

Kobinger decided to try to optimize the cocktails, testing various combinations to see which was best. The result: ZMapp, which is made up of two of Winnipeg\u2019s monoclonals and one made by the U.S. team. A recently published study showed the antibody cocktail protected 100 per cent of Ebola-infected primates, even when treatment was only begun five days after infection.<\/p>\n

Plummer couldn\u2019t be prouder. \u201cPeople had been trying (to make Ebola monoclonals) for years and couldn\u2019t. And we had people who were very good at making monoclonals.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Winnipeg\u2019s success comes down to excellent scientists given free rein to do\u00a0world\u00a0class work. But serendipity plays a role in science too.<\/p>\n

Kobinger says as a scientist, he pursues avenues he hopes will work. But he acknowledges you never know until you try. Promising avenues can turn out to be dead ends.<\/p>\n

Feldmann feels the same way.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of small things and maybe being lucky\u2014I\u2019m sure being lucky\u2014and maybe certain people making the right decisions, Canada became a player in the game. And I think that was the concept,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Kobinger admits he occasionally meets people who want to know the secret of the Winnipeg lab\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re trying to understand if it\u2019s because we have more resources.<\/p>\n

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I guarantee you, no,\u201d he says with a chuckle. \u201cIn relation to many labs in the U.S., definitely we have less.\u201d<\/p>\n

It comes down to people, an institutional philosophy and support.<\/p>\n

Plummer sums it up. \u201cMy strategy, and I think it still is the department\u2019s strategy, is to keep the scientific opportunity as rich as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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