Experts from the University of Nottingham will investigate how genes responsible for disease and antifungal resistance might evolve and spread through fungal populations, thanks to funding from the Wellcome Trust.
Paul Dyer, a Professor in Fungal Biology in the School of Life Sciences has been awarded a £1.2million four-year grant to lead a team project including Dr Jasmine Ono from the University, along with researchers from the Universities of Manchester and Pretoria.
The project aims to investigate how genes responsible for human disease and antifungal resistance might evolve and spread through fungal populations by sexual and other transfer mechanisms, thereby providing an indication of risk from fungal diseases to inform future health management. The work also includes investigation of how climate change might impact on the evolution and spread of fungal pathogenicity genes.
The fungal diseases under study include life-threatening Aspergillosis and Candidiasis, and tropical Fusarium diseases. It is possible that sub populations of these fungi are already evolving to form new disease-causing species.
The research work will draw on recent developments in genomic, bioinformatic, gene editing and barcoding analyses which offer breakthrough possibilities.
Professor Dyer said: "Although many fungi are beneficial, there has been a recent rise in threats from fungal diseases to humans, animals and our plant food crops. This has been compounded by the evolution of resistance to the anti-fungals that we rely on to control disease.
"The funding from the Wellcome Trust will allow our team to study the mechanisms of how genes contributing to pathogenicity and drug resistance can evolve and spread through fungal populations, with associated risk, and how this might be impacted by climate change. This is critical to inform fungal disease management and future drug development. We are very grateful to Wellcome for providing us with this opportunity."
