The present project proposes the development of...the present project proposes the development of a vaccine for chagas disease (american trypanosomiasis), a vector-borne disease caused by the parasite trypanosoma cruzi that leads to the most prevalent cardiac myopathy. chagas disease continues to impact the lives of 10's of millions, consisting in one of the quintessential neglected tropical diseases prioritised by the who due to their colossal effects on health and economic development in lmic’s. conservative economic analyses estimate global costs of chagas disease are over £5 billion per year and £100 billion per lifetime, about 90% of these remain specific to latin america. the few drugs remain old, toxic, poorly deployed and complied with and only partially beneficial when the disease is treated early. there are no vaccines available, although research in recent years from others and ourselves have shown a great deal about pathology and suggest vaccine research is now very plausible and timely and could impact the disease through protection of at-risk human populations. by combining existing expertise in brazil and uk, we expect to characterize two molecules as vaccine targets. due to the increasing number of oral infections by ingestion of contaminated food, we aim to characterize the involvement of these molecules in the parasite-gastric cell interaction in order to obtain experimental proofs-of-concept towards the use of a non-virulent parasite as an oral vaccine carrier.