The Control of Emerging Candida Pathogens

Supervisory Team: Professor Al Brown, Professor Alan Walker, Professor Neil Gow and Liz Johnson (Public Health Labs, Bristol)

Some Candida species are pathogenic, causing life-threatening systemic infections in vulnerable patients [1]. While Candida albicans remains the most common clinical isolate, other species with intrinsic resistance to antifungal drugs are emerging [1]. Recently, C. auris has rapidly emerged as a cause of hospital-acquired systemic infections in Africa, Asia and the UK [2]. In this strategic collaboration between the Aberdeen Fungal Group and the Rowett Institute of Nutrition & Health we will address the urgent need to characterise this species and determine how the rapid spread of C. auris infections can be halted.

Some Candida species colonise the gut, thereby seeding systemic infections in immunocompromised patients [3]. Therefore this project has two main objectives. First, we will compare the ability of C. auris and other Candida pathogens to colonise the gut using our unique colon-simulating microcosm. Second, having previously shown that certain bfidobacterial species can clear C. albicans from colon microcosms [4], we will test whether these natural components of healthy gut microbiota can clear C. auris and other Candida pathogens from the gut, and then define the molecular mechanisms that mediate this clearance [5,6]. This could lead to the development of probiotic treatments that reduce the likelihood of systemic Candida infections in intensive-care patients.