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-enhanced, automated drug discovery 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 AMR’s increasing impact on Canada by 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
AMR’s disproportionate impact within the population
Babies, seniors, individuals with underlying health conditions, and people in low-resource settings are most affected by AMR because they typically:
- Are more susceptible to infections
- Are more exposed to AMR pathogens
- Have higher rates of antibiotic use, leading to risk of resistance development
- Have fewer treatment options, leading to worse outcomes
Projections for AMR’s increasing impact worldwide by 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 in AI, microbiology, pharmacology and chemistry from across Canada’s academic, public and private institutions.
Using the latest innovations in these fields, the team is 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.
Our impact: accelerating innovation in the AMR ecosystem
Through development of shared knowledge and datasets, infrastructure, collaborative links and workforce talent, PandemicStop-AI will strengthen national research capacity and enable faster, more integrated responses to current and future pandemics.
We are part of 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 Canada Biomedical Research Fund (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 small molecule production and manufacturing, and reinforcing workforce development in pandemic preparedness and biomanufacturing.
Read more about ECaPPH and other pandemic preparedness hubs here.