Sima Rafati

Department of Immunotherapy and Leishmania vaccine research (former Molecular Immunology and Vaccine Research Lab.), was founded in 1998 by WHO-TDR support with a general objective of research on Leishmania immunology and vaccine. It is my great honor that during recent years, this department has received remarkable financial support from WHO and TDR which have been used to promote both national and international collaborations on fundamental and applied Leishmania research. Since its founding, our department has provided a stimulating environment apt for training graduate and doctoral students interested in Leishmania research who have later become productive experts in their fields. 

Anthroponotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL) due to L. tropica and zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ZCL) caused by L. major, are two predominant Old World variants of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) in various parts of Iran and are considered as major health problems. Therefore, due to these important national health problems, in addition to basic research on Leishmaniasis and in commitment to general visions of Pasteur Institute of Iran, we have also started joint-projects with clinical care units and hospitals in the capital or in the endemic areas of Iran to help the clinicians to speed up their precise diagnosis of the infection and application of the appropriate treatments. Fortunately, the experienced researchers and technicians working in our department are now ready to tackle similar fields of studies regarding other intracellular microorganisms, both inside and outside of the Pasteur Institute of Iran.

Specific Objectives

My activities are divided into three main categories, as follows:

I)            Vaccine/therapy:

• Using different approaches for the vaccine development by screening novel antigens of both the parasite and the vector.
• Development of genetically live-attenuated or non-pathogenic live-microorganisms and reverse based genomic vaccines.
• Studying the effectiveness of adjuvants and immunomodulators for the immunotherapy.
• Research on novel anti-microbial peptides.

II)           Parasite-host relations/mechanisms

• Research on pathogenic factors and pathogenesis.
• Collection of Leishmania parasites from the infected individuals and genetically comparing and characterizing their pathogenicity and heterogeneity.
• Transgenesis and development of the transgenic parasites.

III)         Diagnostic:

• Identification of antigens for diagnostic purposes for both CL and VL for local applications.
• Non-invasive and point-of-care diagnostic tests for CL

1. Lajevardi MS, Gholami E, Taheri T, Sarvnaz H, Habibzadeh S, Seyed N, Mortazavi Y, Rafati S. Leishmania tarentolae as Potential Live Vaccine Co-Expressing Distinct Salivary Gland Proteins Against Experimental Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in BALB/c Mice Model. Front Immunol. 2022 Jun 10;13:895234. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.895234. eCollection 2022.

2. Shokouhy M, Sarvnaz H, Taslimi Y, Lajevardi MS, Habibzadeh S, Mizbani A, Shekari F, Behbahani M, Torrecilhas AC, Rafati S. Isolation, characterization, and functional study of extracellular vesicles derived from Leishmania tarentolae. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2022 Aug 3;12:921410. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2022.921410. eCollection 202

3. Bahrami F, Masoudzadeh N, Van Veen S, Persson J, Lari A, Sarvnaz H, Taslimi Y, Östensson M, Andersson B, Sharifi I, Goyonlo VM, Ottenhoff TH, Haks MC, Harandi AM, Rafati S. Blood transcriptional profiles distinguish different clinical stages of cutaneous leishmaniasis in humans. Mol Immunol. 2022 Sep;149:165-173. doi: 10.1016/j.molimm.2022.07.008. Epub 2022 Jul 26.

4. Masoudzadeh N, Östensson M, Persson J, Mashayekhi Goyonlo V, Agbajogu C, Taslimi Y, Erfanian Salim R, Zahedifard F, Mizbani A, Malekafzali Ardekani H, Gunn BM, Rafati S, Harandi AM. Molecular signatures of anthroponotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in the lesions of patients infected with Leishmania tropica. Sci Rep. 2020 Oct 1;10(1):16198. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-72671-7.

5. Taslimi Y, Agbajogu C, Brynjolfsson SF, Masoudzadeh N, Mashayekhi V, Gharibzadeh S, Östensson M, Nakka SS, Mizbani A, Rafati S, Harandi AM Profiling inflammatory response in lesions of cutaneous leishmaniasis patients using a non-invasive sampling method combined with a high-throughput protein detection assay. Cytokine. 2020 Mar 17;130:155056. doi: 10.1016/j.cyto.2020.155056

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