Minh-Hong Nguyen, MD, has been awarded funding in the amount of $437,250 for a two-year grant by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH/NIAID) entitled, “Within-patient Candida auris strain diversity in a tertiary hospital.” This proposal was submitted in response to the competitive funding opportunity entitled, “NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Clinical Trials Not Allowed)” under funding opportunity number PA-20-195.
Candida auris has recently emerged as a cause of invasive infections worldwide that are associated with high mortality rates despite treatment with echinocandins, the frontline class of antifungal agents, and other drugs. C. auris poses unique challenges due to its propensity for antifungal resistance, and ability to persist in hospital environments causing long-term outbreaks. The long-standing paradigm is that almost all Candida infections of blood or other normally sterile sites stem from a single, clonal organism. However, in preliminary studies, Dr. Nguyen and her team have shown that at least some C. auris and C. glabrata strains recovered from positive blood cultures from individual patients at our center exhibit unrecognized genotypic and phenotypic diversity. Our data suggest a new, population-based paradigm for Candida infections.
The objectives of this project are to characterize the genetic and phenotypic diversity of C. auris strains recovered from individual patients, and to implicate specific C. auris genes and gene variants in echinocandin tolerance and resistance, and in virulence. Results of this study will provide a foundation for mechanistic studies of echinocandin tolerance, resistance and virulence, and for trials establishing the clinical significance of C. auris genotypic and phenotypic diversity. The paradigm of microbial genetic diversity has potentially profound implications for patient care, clinical microbiology practice, and understanding of antifungal treatment responses and pathogenesis.
Please join us in congratulating Hong!