Institut Pasteur de São Paulo and the French company Tekkare bring together researchers for two projects addressing challenges considered priorities by the World Health Organization; the partnership builds on ties established during an official French delegation’s visit to IPSP.
The Institut Pasteur de São Paulo (IPSP) and the French company Tekkare have announced an international collaboration to develop artificial intelligence applications that will accelerate research in two areas deemed global public health priorities: the development of influenza vaccines and the fight against antimicrobial resistance.
Established for an initial period of 12 months, the collaboration will enable IPSP researchers in bacteriology, vaccinology, and infectious diseases to use OIP Discovery, Tekkare’s AI-powered platform. In addition to providing access to the platform, training, and joint development of new functionalities, Tekkare will benefit from the scientific expertise of Brazilian researchers to validate, refine, and expand the platform’s capabilities in real-world research applications. The collaboration does not involve research funding or joint development of commercial products; rather, it focuses on developing tools to support scientific research.
The researchers will initially work on two projects. The first aims to develop an artificial intelligence-based computational workflow to identify antigen candidates for self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) influenza vaccines more rapidly and accurately. The approach combines genomic surveillance data—including environmental wastewater samples—immunological information, and structural models of viral proteins to reduce the time between the identification of circulating variants and the selection of components for future vaccines.
The second project aims to build a global atlas of antimicrobial resistance by integrating microbiological data, antibiotic consumption records, epidemiological data, and environmental variables to monitor the evolution of bacterial resistance across regions worldwide. The platform will use artificial intelligence models to identify patterns, predict trends, and support epidemiological surveillance as well as evidence-based policies for the rational use of antibiotics. “Few projects are as innovative as building a global atlas of antimicrobial resistance. This is where our engineering strength in health data and AI truly makes a difference, and it is the kind of collaboration we want to build with research institutions around the world,” said Robin Sarfati, Chief Technology Officer at Tekkare.
The relationship between IPSP and Tekkare was strengthened during the official visit of the Île-de-France Regional delegation to the Institut Pasteur de São Paulo in February this year. On that occasion, Valérie Pécresse, President of the Île-de-France Regional Council, led a delegation composed of academic, diplomatic, and business representatives from France’s innovation ecosystem, including Tekkare. The visit, promoted and organized by Business France, aimed to expand opportunities for scientific cooperation between Brazil and France and paved the way for the formalization of this collaboration.
“The visit by the French delegation represented much more than an institutional meeting. It created a favorable environment for bringing together researchers, universities, and companies around shared global health challenges. This partnership is a concrete example of how international cooperation can accelerate knowledge generation and strengthen scientific innovation,” said Paola Minoprio, Executive Director of the Institut Pasteur de São Paulo.
According to Rúbens Alves, the IPSP researcher leading the projects developed under the partnership, artificial intelligence does not replace scientific research—it significantly enhances its capabilities.
“We are talking about transforming an enormous volume of dispersed information into actionable knowledge for scientific decision-making. The platform will allow us to integrate data currently scattered across multiple databases, identify patterns that would be difficult to detect through conventional analyses alone, and accelerate key stages of the research process, while always maintaining scientific rigor.”
Over the coming months, the teams will work together to further improve the platform, integrate new datasets, and develop functionalities tailored to infectious disease research. The agreement also includes the preparation of a co-authored scientific publication by researchers from both institutions, consolidating the results achieved through the collaboration.