Invisible, deadly and ubiquitous fungal pathogens pose an increasingly serious threat to global health, especially among immunocompromised patients.
These pathogens evolve rapidly and often rapidly acquire resistance to antifungal drugs, making available treatments less effective. Due to the increasing incidence and geographic spread of fungal infections due to increasing immunosuppressive therapy, and global climate change, there is an urgent need for collaboration among research institutions to develop new therapeutic approaches to combat fungal infections.
These issues led faculty at the Center for Pediatric Experimental Therapeutics (CPET) to establish the Tennessee Fungal Pathogens Group Annual Research Conference and Retreat. After eight years, the conference has become an important gathering for fungal laboratories throughout the state. The conference’s goal is to create an environment conducive to trainee development and to foster collaboration among fungal pathogen researchers in Tennessee. The eighth annual conference was held June 12-14 at Evins Mill in Smithville, Tennessee.
“When we think of fungal infections, we often think of skin infections like ringworm that can be treated with over-the-counter creams,” says Jarrod Fortwendel, M.D., professor of pharmacy and director of CPET at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Texas, “but in some cases, fungi can grow inside the body and cause deep-seated disease that can spread throughout the body.”
According to the World Health Organization, fungal infections pose an increasingly significant public health concern worldwide, particularly affecting people with weakened immune systems or underlying medical conditions. Increasing factors, including medical advances, access to immunosuppressive therapy, increasing antifungal resistance, and the expanding incidence and geographic range of fungal infections, are further impacting global health.
Bringing together fungal pathogen researchers, chemists, biologists, clinicians, immunologists and others, the annual gathering aims to build connections and expertise among the state’s top researchers to fight fungal diseases. “The end goal is to improve patient outcomes,” says Fort Wendell. “This requires a large team because it requires different perspectives. We certainly need people with experience working with living organisms, but we also need people who can provide expertise in areas such as chemical biology and medicinal chemistry when pursuing problems related to drug development.”
“It helps that these people are already working in the antifungal field, because they understand the language,” Fortwendel says. “The expertise is right here in Tennessee. We don’t have to go around the world to find it. We need people with different scientific backgrounds, otherwise we’re not going to find new treatments fast enough. That’s really the power of this group.”
Treating fungal infections that are resistant to existing drugs is a complex problem that cannot be solved by one researcher alone. Unlike bacterial or viral infections, the physiology of fungi is very similar to that of human patients, which makes it very complex to successfully treat fungal infections. However, the fungi that can cause human infections are very different from each other. While one researcher is studying a fungal pathogen that develops drug resistance through a particular mechanism, another researcher across the hallway may be studying a different fungal pathogen that responds in a completely different way to antifungal agents. Therefore, collaboration between researchers and disciplines is essential to effectively use currently available treatments for fungal diseases.
“The ultimate goal of research into drug resistance is to save our current antifungals,” says Fort Wendell. “It takes decades to bring a new drug to market, so efforts to ensure the long-term effectiveness of existing antifungals are critical. We have people in the Tennessee Fungal Pathogens Group who are interested in solving this resistance problem — why it’s happening and how to prevent it.”
Today, the conference features researchers from every major institution in the state, including UT Health Science Center, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Rhodes University, University of Memphis, Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “We know that by working together, we can ask bigger questions,” Fort Wendell says.
Nurturing new researchers was a primary goal of the conference’s creation. Postdocs and graduate students from across the state can attend the conference, present their research, and interact with prominent researchers. “The goal is to strengthen this group across Tennessee, provide a venue for trainees to build their own networks, and get valuable feedback from the research community across the state,” says Fort Wendell. To achieve these goals, the annual conference is designed to integrate breakout sessions and structured oral presentations by graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty.
Each year, a featured speaker from out of state attends the conference to provide new perspectives and insights to combat fungal infections. This year’s featured speaker was Dr. Mark Swidergall, assistant professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and a research associate in the Lundquist Institute in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Dr. Swidergall, an immunologist, delivered an insightful talk on the regulation of immune metabolism and host responses in oral candidiasis in adults and neonates.
The conference generated important connections and collaborations that led to numerous new grants and journal articles that advance fungal pathogen research across the country. In the 2023-2024 academic year, the TN Fungal Pathogens Group achieved several milestones, leading students to prestigious postdoctoral positions at institutions such as Yale University School of Medicine, the University of Arkansas Medical Center, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Members of the group also contributed to high-impact scientific journals such as: Science, Nature Microbiologyand Nature CommunicationsAdditionally, University of Texas Health Science Center faculty who regularly attend the conference played a major role in securing NIH funding, totaling more than $5.4 million for the group last fiscal year.
Going forward, the group is eager to continue fighting serious fungal infections both stateside and around the world. They aim to conduct scientific research in their lab and foster interactions that improve patient outcomes. This could include faster diagnosis, developing new drugs, or making current drugs even more effective.
For more information about the Center of Excellence in Pediatric Experimental Therapeutics, please visit https://www.uthsc.edu/pharmacy/dcpts/cpet.php
