Crossroads to drug resistance and host adaptation in emerging fungal pathogens

Organizer: IRB BioMed Seminars

Date: Friday 4 March, 12:00h
Place: Auditorium, PCB

Speaker: Dr. Toni Gabaldón - IRB Affiliated Group Leader - Comparative Genomics LAB - Mechanisms of Disease Programme.
Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC-CNS),and Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB).

Title: "Crossroads to drug resistance and host adaptation in emerging fungal pathogens"

Abstract: Invasive fungal diseases such as candidiasis, caused by Candida species, are a major public health problem. They are difficult to diagnose and have high mortality rates. Moreover therapeutic options are limited, and resistance to multiple antifungal drugs is increasingly reported, particularly in emerging species such as Candida glabrata, Candida parapsilosis, and Candida auris. Despite their common genus name, Candida pathogens, are evolutionarily diverse and belong to different lineages where the ability to infect humans has emerged independently. Over the last years we have used in vitro evolution, and comparative genomics and transcriptomics approaches to understand how the different pathogenic lineages adapted to humans and how they become resistant to the drugs we use to fight their infections. Here I will discuss recent findings on how new pathogens emerged, what toolkits they use for infections, and how they manage to adapt to antifungals.

IRB BioMed Seminars

IMPORTANT: For attendees outside the PCB community you must register at least 24h before the seminar.