Grant: Joint Canada-Israel Health Research Program

Vector-borne protozoan infections, including Malaria, Leishmaniasis, and Chagas disease, are a major global health concern that affect billions of people and cost economies billions of dollars annually. The i-NEVER REST consortium is a research collaboration between teams in Canada, Israel, Ghana, and Brazil that aims to improve global health by reducing the impact of these three diseases. The consortium will focus on increasing understanding of the role of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in host-parasite interactions and antimicrobial resistance, as well as developing EV-signature profiles for detecting and monitoring infections and potential relapses due to antimicrobial resistance. The consortium's four-year program includes three working packages that will investigate the mechanisms of sorting and transfer of biomolecules in EVs, the impact of drug resistance and EVs in host-parasite interactions, and the use of patient-derived EVs as novel markers of infection and treatment failure. The findings from this research have the potential to provide new targets for drug intervention, identify markers of AMR enriched in EVs, and uncover novel diagnostic tools for early and chronic infections.