Grant: Project Grant

Leishmaniasis is a parasitic infection affecting millions of individuals worldwide, including our soldiers in the Middle-East, and is responsible for thousands of human deaths yearly. My laboratory studies how this insect-transmitted infection can hijack our immune response and progress in human causing skin lesion and enlargement of liver and spleen. For example, we found that this microscopic parasite can concentrate several virulence factors within small vesicles named exosomes. Once released from the parasite within the gut of the insect vector they are transmitted together to the host during the insect blood meal. These vesicles were found to be critical for the parasite to effectively invade the mammalian host. Experiments proposed in my research project will permit to understand how Leishmania and its released vesicles can modulate our immune system by interacting with specific surface receptors of the immune cells. We suspect that this interaction will send biochemical messages involved in the control of their protective functions. Collectively, knowledge stemming from our investigation should concur to the development of new diagnostic, vaccine and prophylactic to fight this important infectious agent.