June 15, 2021
The University of Texas Medical Branch has announced the results of an international search for a new Director of the Galveston National Laboratory. Gary Kobinger, PhD, OM, MSC, will join the institution on Sept. 1,
2021.
Dr. Kobinger earned his PhD from the University of Montreal
and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. In
2005, he was recruited by the Public Health Agency of Canada, and from 2008 to
2016 he served as Chief of the Special Pathogens Biosafety Level 4 program at
the National Microbiology Laboratory.
Since 2016, Dr. Kobinger has been Director of the Centre de
Recherche en Infectiologie (Infectious Diseases Research Center) at Université
Laval in Québec, Canada, where he has also served as Professor in the
Department of Infectious Diseases, Microbiology and Immunology. He concurrently
held appointments of associate professor at the University of Manitoba and
adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
His many honors include the Meritorious Service Cross
(civil division) of the Governor General of Canada, the Ernest C. Manning
Principal Award, and the Governor General of Canada’s Innovation Award. Dr.
Kobinger was elected by the World Health Organization (WHO) to co-chair the
Emerging and Dangerous Pathogens Laboratory Global Network for Outbreak Response
and Readiness (2008 to 2014), and to serve the International Health Regulation
on the roster of experts in Viral Hemorrhagic Fever. He has been an ad hoc
advisor to the SAGE committee at WHO, the High Priority Pathogens committee,
and is a current advisor to the WHO Deputy Director-General, Emergency
Preparedness and Response.
Dr. Kobinger’s work focuses on developing and testing new
vaccine platforms and immune treatments against pathogens of high consequences
to global public health. He has co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed
scientific manuscripts and given invited seminars at universities, national and
international funding agencies, departments of national defenses, the White
House, and the WHO. He has current funding from several agencies, including the
National Institutes of Health and Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
