National Microbiology Laboratory Vice-President Jason Kindrachuk to Step Down June 28 and Return to University Research

Jason Kindrachuk will step down as vice-president of the National Microbiology Laboratory on June 28 and return full-time to his research lab at the University of Manitoba. Kindrachuk, who holds the Canada Research Chair in the molecular pathogenesis of emerging viruses, said he will focus on work he described as the things he thinks he is best at and where his passion lies.

He said the dual role of leading the NML while maintaining academic research during early mornings, evenings and weekends is not sustainable.

His university lab has supported Ebola responses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including during fall 2025 and the current outbreak in the northeast of the country. Kindrachuk said he plans to be on the ground in Kinshasa in July and expressed concern that the world is becoming too nonchalant about outbreaks that can evolve into much larger events.

The Winnipeg facility is Canada’s only Biosafety Level 4 laboratory authorized to study pathogens such as Ebola and Marburg viruses that have no known vaccines or treatments.

A second BSL-4 lab at the University of Saskatchewan is scheduled to become operational by 2027. Over the past decade the NML has had four people in its top leadership post. Matthew Gilmour was appointed scientific director general in February 2015.

Guillaume Poliquin took over in May 2020. Dr. Jean Longtin was named vice-president in January 2025 and was replaced by Kindrachuk six months later. Longtin had been assigned to implement recommendations from the special committee on the Canada-China relationship.

In 2019, Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng were escorted out of the NML and later fired. Declassified Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents tabled in the House of Commons in February 2024 stated that the couple provided confidential scientific information to China and posed a credible security threat to Canada.