• Grant: LRI Regular Grant
• Budget round: 2025
• Research priorities: Disability
• Country: Brazil
• Project no.: FP25\25
• Budget: €173,238
• Duration: May 2025 - April 2029
• Status: Ongoing
• Co-funding partners: Turing Foundation

Project coordination
Oswaldo Cruz Foundation

Aim: The primary objective of this project is to obtain the inverse genomic signature of ENL based on the proposition that this drug signature should have a therapeutic benefit if it generates a gene expression profile that is the inverse of the signature associated with the ENL.

Full project title: Decoding Therapeutic Landscapes: Unravelling the Inverse Genomic Signature of Erythema Nodosum Leprosum (ENL) for Neutrophil-Targeted Interventions

Project summary

In recent studies, researchers have been meticulously analysing how our genes respond to infections. They focused on a condition called erythema nodosum leprosum (ENL), which affects people with leprosy. They compared the genes of leprosy patients with ENL to those without it, as well as to patients who started taking thalidomide, a medicine used to treat ENL in Brazil. Thalidomide typically helps reduce ENL symptoms within few days. Previously, they studied the genes in skin lesions of ENL patients and found certain genes linked to a type of white blood cell called neutrophils. Now, the research team wants to find the opposite pattern of genes, hoping it will lead to new treatments for ENL. The researchers plan to use computer analysis to find drugs that could target these genes and then test them in the lab using neutrophils from healthy people and leprosy patients with or without ENL. This meticulous research process ensures the validity of the findings and the potential to improve the lives of people affected by ENL.

• Grant: LRI Regular Grant
• Budget round: 2025
• Research priorities: Transmission
• Country: Brazil
• Project no.: FP25\19
• Budget: €247,235
• Duration: April 2025 - March 2028
• Status: Ongoing

Project coordination
University of Salford

Partners
University College London
Manchester Metropolitan University
Universidade Estadual da Paraíba
Universidade Federal do Piauí
Universidade Estadual do Ceará
Centro Universitário Aparício Carvalho
Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso
ICAS - Instituto de Conservação de Animais Silvestres
Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá
Virginia Tech 
Universidad de Málaga
Hospital Giselda Trigueiro 
Universidade Federal do Pernambuco
Instituto Lauro de Souza Lima

Aim: As a primary objective, this research seeks to address significant knowledge gaps by exploring the geographic distribution and prevalence of both M. leprae and M. lepromatosis in armadillos collected from 10 states in Brazil. 

Full project title: Unveiling the zoonotic dynamics of Leprosy in Brazil: a molecular exploration and surveillance approach

Project summary

This project aims to investigate the transmission dynamics of M. leprae between humans and armadillos in Brazil. Armadillos are regularly hunted in Brazil, and there is evidence suggesting that contact between humans and armadillos increases the risk of contracting leprosy. In contrast, in the United States, where interactions between humans and armadillos are less frequent, leprosy is acknowledged as a disease that can spread from these animals to humans. Brazil reports a significant number of leprosy cases each year (around 28,000), and it is known that two groups of armadillos, Dasypus and Euphractus, can naturally carry the leprosy bacteria, M. leprae. However, the mechanisms behind M. leprae transmission from armadillos to humans in Brazil are still poorly understood.

In this context, this project will attempt to find answers to three main questions: 'How common is leprosy among armadillos in Brazil?', 'Are there different types of the leprosy bacteria in armadillos?' and 'Does the same bacterial strain occur in armadillos and humans?'.
To tackle these questions, we have assembled a diverse team of researchers and conservationists from 10 states in Brazil.  The research team will work closely together with local communities to collect and analyse samples from hunted armadillos to better understand leprosy prevalence in these wild animals.  Samples of humans affected by leprosy will also be analysed to compare with the strains found in armadillos.

Conventional and new DNA sequencing techniques will be used to analyse the genome of the bacteria responsible for leprosy in both human and armadillo populations. The research will focus not only on detecting the bacteria causing leprosy but also on investigating their genetic similarity and potential resistance to treatment. By elucidating the M. leprae transmission routes between humans and armadillos, the project aims to enhance public health interventions for disease prevention and control.

• Grant: LRI Regular Grant
• Budget round: 2025
• Research priorities: Stigma and discrimination
• Country: India, Nepal
• Project no.: FP25\12
• Budget: €225,295
• Duration: April 2025 - March 2028
• Status: Ongoing
• Co-funding partners: St Francis Leprosy Guild

Project coordination
The Leprosy Mission Great Britain

Partners
The Leprosy Mission Trust India
The Leprosy Mission Nepal
University of Sussex (Brighton & Sussex Medical School)

Aim: The main aim of this Participatory Action Research study is to develop a replicable process through which persons affected by leprosy with anxiety and depression co-produce local community-based mental health interventions in India and Nepal.

Full project title: Working towards mental health Recovery Among Persons affected by leprosy (WRAP): A feasibility study in India and Nepal

Project summary

Physical symptoms and complications of leprosy, such as visible changes to the skin, chronic pain, and ulcers and wounds which can lead to physical impairments, have a negative effect on the mental health of those who are affected by the disease. This negative effect on mental health is often exacerbated by the exclusion and stigma people affected by leprosy experience in their daily lives. Not being allowed to leave one’s house, losing a job or being denied the opportunity for education or marriage may result in feeling lonely, anxious or depressed, even suicidal. It is not surprising, then, to see that most studies find a significantly higher prevalence of depression and anxiety among persons affected by leprosy, in addition to low self-esteem and low quality of life.

While there is plethora of interventions that target anxiety and depression originating from the Global North, some of which are available globally, there is a gap in understanding and identifying local mental health idioms using local cultural perspectives and vocabularies, and in developing and evaluating locally-rooted interventions, for and with people affected by leprosy. This study aims to improve the lives of individuals affected by leprosy and experiencing mental health issues, by empowering them through the co-production of locally-rooted, meaningful and effective interventions.

To that end, the research team will work with persons affected by leprosy in India and Nepal to explore whether it is feasible to develop together a mental health intervention that is replicable in other similar contexts. First, persons affected by leprosy will decide on what ‘good’ mental health means for them, identify the factors that contribute to good mental health, and design interventions that may lead to good mental health. These interventions will be assessed to see whether they make a positive difference for the mental health of people affected by leprosy.

The immediate purpose of the study is to make those interventions that work available for the use of other people affected by leprosy in other similar communities. However, every community and culture is different; therefore it is more important to give the tools to person affected by leprosy in other communities to produce interventions that are appropriate and efficient in their own contexts. With that in mind, the broader purpose of the study is to capture the entire process of how interventions can be produced by persons affected by leprosy, so that the process can be replicated in other places. To that end, the study will also produce guidelines on how other researchers and communities can produce their own interventions that work in their own contexts.

• Grant: LRI Regular Grant
• Budget round: 2025
• Research priorities: Diagnostic tests
• Country: Brazil, Canada
• Project no.: FP25\10
• Budget: €78,863
• Duration: April 2025 - October 2027
• Status: Ongoing
• Co-funding partners: Turing Foundation

Project coordination
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná

Partners
McGill University Health Centre - RI-MUHC
Universidade Federal do Goiás - UFG
Fundação Hospitalar Alfredo da Matta, FUHAM
Universidade Federal de Uberlândia - UFU

Aim: The study aims to advance the understanding of the genetic component controlling host susceptibility to leprosy in a high-endemic setting, combining a hypothesis-free and a hypothesis-based approach.

Full project title: Genome-wide association study of leprosy per se and disease recurrence in a high endemic country

Project summary

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae, a microbe that invades cells of the skin and nerves. The development of leprosy is highly dependent on the genetic constitution of the human host, as initially demonstrated by observational studies involving families and twin pairs, for example. With the advance of technology, studies using DNA successfully identified various candidate genes involved in the control of leprosy itself and clinical features of the disease, such as the clinical type of leprosy and the occurrence of leprosy reaction. However, very few of these studies were designed to pinpoint the true causative genetic variants of the disease. Furthermore, the recurrence of the disease is a phenomenon that has been little explored and has a major impact on leprosy support services.

The research team has already identified a large number of genetic variants with a possible strong impact on leprosy; also, researchers described what can be a hypersusceptibility genetic profile in patients who had a recurrence of the disease. The next step is to validate these results in different populations. In this project, the researchers propose to search for new leprosy-associated variants, as well as to validate these variants using a large Brazilian population sample. As a result, it is expected to describe variants that might help to unravel the exact nature of host genetic control of susceptibility to leprosy. The impact of these variants will be analysed together to describe a profile that may lead patients to develop leprosy more than once. Finally, the research team hopes to contribute to the creation of a genetic panel that can be used to monitor patients and contacts, mainly living in endemic areas.