Mission and impact
To drive AI-propelled innovation in antimicrobial discovery to protect Canadians’ health and safeguard our healthcare system.
- We will develop an AI-driven, automated pipeline.
- We will accelerate finding drug targets, antimicrobials, and on-demand chemical synthesis methods.
- Our end-goal: To make Canada resilient to AMR pandemics.
Why we need to act now on AMR
Projections for AMRs increasing impact on Canada in 2050
40%+
of infections will resist first-line antibiotics
$8 billion
extra in annual healthcare costs
13,700
deaths per year from AMR
$21 billion
lost in GDP yearly from AMR workforce impact
It disproportionately affects the vulnerable
Babies, seniors, individuals with underlying health conditions, and people in low-resource settings are disproportionately affected by AMR:
- They are more susceptible to infections
- They are more exposed to AMR pathogens
- They have higher rates of antibiotic use, leading to risk of resistance development
- They have fewer treatment options, leading to worse outcomes
Projected impact of AMR worldwide in 2050
10 million
deaths per year
1.2 trillion
extra in annual healthcare costs (USD)
3.8%
Global GDP decline
28 million
More people in poverty
A collaborative Canadian initiative to overcome AMR
Launched in May 2024, PandemicStop-AI creates new strategic partnerships between world-leading experts and in artificial intelligence (AI), microbiology, pharmacology and chemistry from across Canada’s academic, public and private institutions.
Using the latest innovations in these fields, the team envision developing a rapid-response platform to accelerate the discovery of novel antibiotics to tackle new and existing drug-resistant bacteria, to contain current and future AMR pandemics.
Development of knowledge and datasets, infrastructure, collaborative links and talent pool ready to tackle current and future AMR pandemics
Deliverables of the project
Meeting Canada’s needs for rapid response and supply-chain resilience during AMR pandemics
Our impact: accelerating innovation in the AMR ecosystem
PandemicStop-AI creates and consolidates a vibrant ecosystem of researchers, institutions, research centres and organizations working together across AMR and pandemic preparedness.
Our consortium will strengthen national research capacity and enable faster, more integrated responses to the current and future pandemics.
The national pandemic preparedness ecosystem
Our research team is part of a larger national ecosystem dedicated to pandemic preparedness. This ecosystem includes:
- Nineteen consortia funded through the CBRF program, including PandemicStop-AI
- Five national hubs, such as ECaPPH (based at UdeM), which support coordination and collaborations across all consortia.
Together, this ecosystem strengthens Canada’s readiness for future pandemics. It builds on Canada’s investments in research, infrastructure and talent, and fosters partnerships across academic, public and private sectors to accelerate the integrated development of life-saving therapeutics.
PandemicStop-AI contributes to the ECaPPH vision of developing novel therapeutics by providing capacity for state-of-the-art preclinical models of pandemic pathogens, supporting the production and manufacturing of small molecules, and reinforcing workforce development in pandemic preparedness and biomanufacturing.
Read more about ECaPPH and other pandemic preparedness hubs here.