Parasites weaken cattle, costing the beef industry hundreds of millions of dollars, an issue that's made worse by rising drug resistance. Now, scientists at the University of Calgary are developing a genetics-based approach to understand and defeat parasitic worms, known as helminths, with the goal of developing new therapeutics at a time when existing drugs are becoming less effective.
"These parasites are a silent drag on production," says Dr. James Wasmuth, PhD. "They rob cattle of nutrients, reduce growth, and cost the industry hundreds of millions through treatment and lost productivity. With resistance to drugs rising, we simply don't have a pipeline of new drugs, and that is what this project aims to change."
The UCalgary transdisciplinary team, led by Wasmuth, has secured a $1.4-million Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Alliance grant to create and validate new drugs targeting roundworms that affect beef cattle. The project brings together collaborators from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (UVCM) and the Faculty of Science, and is supported by long-standing industry partners including Alberta Beef Producers and Boehringer-Ingelheim Animal Health.
The challenge
Helminths live in the gastrointestinal tract of cattle, often causing infections that quietly weaken the animal. For decades, the cattle sector has relied on a handful of drug classes, but the emergence and spread of helminths resistant to existing drugs in Western Canada and abroad has diminished their effectiveness, and raised alarms among producers and veterinarians.
"Producers and veterinarians are telling us: we need tools," Wasmuth says. "That industry voice shaped how we built this project. it's about practical solutions that need to be adopted on the ground."
A genome-to-drug discovery engine
At the core of the project is a pipeline that starts with helminth DNA and moves to potential treatments. Researchers sequence the parasites' genomes to identify essential biological pathways, then use an AI-based protein structure prediction tool such as AlphaFold to model key targets. Large libraries of compounds are screened virtually to identify promising candidates, which are then tested on live parasites and refined through medicinal chemistry to then improve effectiveness and understand how they work in vivo.
"Genomic tools have been a great tool for identifying initial leads and we've already developed several novel compounds that show real efficacy against live parasites while preserving mammalian cells," says medical chemist Dr. Darren Derksen, PhD, in the Faculty of Science. "That's exciting, but there's still a long road from here to a cattle-ready drug."
Collaboration at every step
Co-applicant Dr. Constance Finney, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, brings expertise in parasite biology, while UCVM's Dr. Brielle Rosa, DVM, PhD, a fellow researcher, is a clinical pharmacologist who provides practical expertise from the practical veterinarian perspective.
The team's transdisciplinary efforts were also bolstered by earlier UCalgary research support from the Transdisciplinary Connector Grant program, and matching funds from the Faculty of Science, which helped launch the chemistry component that now underpins the grant application.
"It's been a journey," says Wasmuth. "Years of incremental progress, and the support of collaborators, industry partners, and early seed funding, have brought us to a point where we can push the science forward in a way that really matters."
Looking ahead
Over the next five years, the project will continue optimization of future drugs with the goal of advancing to cattle trials, a major milestone toward real-world impact. Beyond beef cattle, the team envisions that this genome-to-drug pipeline could benefit other livestock sectors facing similar parasite challenges, including sheep and poultry.
Once effective candidates are on hand, the next question will be commercialization: whether through partnerships with established animal-health companies or by supporting a Calgary-based spin-off.
This research is funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Alliance program, Alberta Innovates Technology Futures, Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, Alberta Beef Producers, and Boehringer-Ingelheim. Additional support came from a UCalgary Transdisciplinary Connetor Grant and the UCalgary matching funds program. Researchers report no conflicts of interest.
