From mushrooms to molds, fungal life on this planet is often overlooked - but has a big impact. In this series, we dive into fungal research across Duke, a growing area of strength for the university.
When Duke biologist Amy Gladfelter talks about fungi, she starts with her childhood.
"I was always outside, digging, climbing and observing," says Gladfelter. That childhood pastime turned into a career in research. As a Ph.D. student at Duke, she worked on the simplest fungus - baker's yeast. That's how she began to think deeply about fungi: as powerful model systems for understanding fundamental cell biology.
"I started working with bacteria and became fascinated by the invisible world of microbes, she says.
Today, Gladfelter is part of a Duke group studying how fungi become pathogens. Most fungal infections strike people with weakened immune systems, but she warns that climate change may be aiding new fungal threats.
Most people notice them only when mushrooms pop up after a storm or mold appears in a dishwasher or on a shower curtain. But fungi are everywhere. "We're constantly swimming in fungal spores, breathing them in, surrounded by them and yet we only notice them at certain moments," she says.
Gladfelter started studying bacteria, but fungi captured her imagination while working on her Ph.D. at Duke. She worked with baker's yeast, our most common fungus, and learned how much these simple organisms can teach us about human biology.
"It's not flashy, but it taught us so much about how cells are organized, how they grow, divide, and how similar fungal and human cells really are," Gladfelter says. "For 20 years, I've been captivated by how this unusual organization gives us insight not only into fungi, but into the behavior of many cell types."
Her journey then took her to Switzerland, where she studied the foundation of fungal life: mycelium, the threadlike networks found beneath mushrooms. These networks are made of giant single cells that can stretch for surprising distances.
What Fungi Means for Our Health
What makes them so unusual is that they contain many nuclei, not just one. These cells can just achieve massive sizes, and yet they're single cells, explains Gladfelter. This allows fungi to grow large networks, gather nutrients over broad areas, and respond quickly to environmental changes. Gladfelter believes this multinucleated structure may be a kind of biological superpower.
The most recent emergence of fungal pathogens has come from places that suggest climate change might be selecting for certain traits in fungi in the environment, allowing them to jump into humans because they become more temperature-adapted, according to Gladfelter.
Some fungi are becoming more heat-tolerant; others can grow on plastic, making them harder to control in hospitals.
The problem is that "we have very, very few antifungals, we're just not prepared," says Gladfelter.
Understanding how fungi adapt and how they might jump into humans is becoming increasingly urgent.
Fungi on Film
Visitors to Gladfelter's lab won't find big mushrooms. Instead, they'll see Petri dishes filled with colorful fungal strains and microscopes capturing time-lapse movies of mycelium growing. Her team tracks droplets, nuclei, and cell dynamics in real time. It's a window into a world most people never see.
"We often make a lot of movies … (and) watch them move around," she said.
Her lab studies tiny cellular droplets called condensates that form and dissolve inside cells to help them respond to stress. These droplets are found in fungi, human neurons, and cancer cells. Because they are so sensitive to environmental changes, they may explain how fungi switch from harmless to harmful.
Researchers think tiny droplet-like structures inside cells may help environmental fungi evolve into disease-causing organisms. Understanding these structures could lead to new ways to prevent and treat infections, as well as shed light on diseases.
"It's a really exciting new concept of how therapies may get developed."
Lessons for Pregnancy
One of the most surprising connections Gladfelter uncovered is between fungi and the human placenta . Both rely on giant cells that contain more than one nucleus within a single cell membrane. In the placenta, this massive cell forms the interface between mother and baby. Like fungi, it must endure constant stress, including changes in oxygen, nutrients and pH.
Her own experience with infertility made her curious about this overlooked organ. Now, half her lab studies the placenta, applying lessons learned from fungi. They're working with Duke maternal-fetal medicine specialists to understand conditions such as preeclampsia, a condition in which a pregnant woman's blood pressure becomes dangerously high.
The parallels don't end there. Some cancer cells also fuse into multinucleated structures, gaining resilience and resistance to treatment. Gladfelter sees a pattern: "There is this sort of resilience and stress tolerance … this ability to cope with a lot of different changing stresses."
Gladfelter says Duke has made her work possible because of the cross-disciplinary research that takes place. "I have just found it to be such an easy place to collaborate with people. ... You don't have to go outside. It's all here," she says.
