Fungal infections and resistance to antifungals are on the rise worldwide, with 14.9 million cases and 1.7 million deaths every year. Nearly 2% of Canadians have serious fungal infections and spikes in frequency have been associated with COVID-19, particularly in the most vulnerable patients.This project will develop faster and more accurate tools to identify fungal species and antifungal susceptibility from DNA sequencing directly from clinical samples.The deliverables will include a database of pre-validated resistance mutations, a procedure for generating multilocus sequencing from clinical samples, and a bioinformatic pipeline for species identification and prediction of antifungal resistance.
The project willimplement the diagnostic tools at the Laboratoire de santé publique du Québec, the Public Health Agency of Canada and Public Health Ontario. These three organizations have vast experience in the development of diagnostic tests and play key roles in regulatory organizations and committees that set standards in the field. Implementing faster and more targeted and sensitive testing will reduce the number of deaths and morbidity of Canadians with invasive fungal infections.
Genome Centre: Génome Québec
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| Philippe | Dufresne | Laboratoire de santé publique du Québec |