[1] Additionally, he was the chief of the Special Pathogens Unit at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, for eight years.
His work focuses on the development and evaluation of new vaccine platforms and immunological treatments against emerging and re-emerging viruses that are dangerous to human health.
[2] Provided under compassionate emergency protocols during the West African Ebola epidemic in 2014, its first use was on 27 first responders infected in the line of duty, where all but one successfully recovered.
[2] Using technologies not widely accepted at the time, ZMapp is made with a cocktail of 3 monoclonal antibodies (shown to be ineffective when used on their own), that target glycoproteins on the virus’ outer membrane, which prevent it from replicating.
[4] The NML had been trying to get the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine into clinical trials for many years before it was eventually fast-tracked for immediate distribution in 2014, likely saving thousands of lives.
[5] Using a vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) backbone with an added ebolavirus glycoprotein, the NML had a viral vector vaccine ready when the epidemic occurred.
[1] Kobinger left Canada to become the director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch in September 2021, as the result of an international search to fill the position.