Dr C. Fernandez-Prada
m.v., MSc, PhD

In 2016, Dr. Fernandez-Prada became Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Montreal, where he also served as the director of their Animal Parasitology Diagnostic Laboratory. In 2019, he was appointed Adjunct Professor at McGill University and Deputy Director of the Production Animal Infectious Diseases research group at the University of Montreal. In 2021, he was named Associate Professor at the University of Montreal, received the Bhagirath Singh early career award in Infection and Immunity from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and joined the steering committee of the Canadian Network in NTDs. That same year he was appointed as full member of Sigma Xi the Scientific Research Honor Society. Most recently, in 2022, he joined the Community of Specialized Experts of the Science Advisory Committee on Pest Control Products at Health Canada. In the same year he was named Adjunct Professor at Laval University. In 2023, he received the Zoetis Excellence in Research Award for his continuous contribution to the field of parasitology, extracellular vesicles and infectious diseases. His discoveries in drug resistance and genetic exchange in Leishmania parasites were selected as one the Top10 scientific discoveries of 2022 by Quebec Science. 

Due to the significance and impact of his discoveries, Dr. Fernandez-Prada has been invited to serve as a plenary or keynote speaker at more than 120 national and international meetings in the last past 5 years. As a result of these significant findings, Fernandez-Prada’s lab has initiated several international collaborations (WHO, ISCIII-Spain, FIOCRUZ-Brazil, Weizmann-Israel, NIH-USA, etc.) with researchers from a wide range of fields, including immunology, cancer, structural biology, and various branches of microbiology (basic and clinical). In addition to EVs, Fernandez-Prada’s lab is interested in the mode of action of novel antiparasitic agents, the discovery of novel biomarkers (with a focus on drug resistance) and the development of EV-based vaccines against protozoan parasites. He is currently supported by the CIHR, NSERC, CFI, FRQNT and the J.-Louis Lévesque Foundation.