| Meet the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Christina Hull Professor of Biomolecular Chemistry and Medical Microbiology & Immunology |
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Research area Invasive fungal diseases kill millions of people worldwide each year, and the numbers are climbing, but the therapies to treat dying patients are lagging behind. The Hull Lab focuses on understanding the fundamental biology of human fungal pathogens to help develop effective, life-saving antifungal treatments. The research group uses the meningitis-causing environmental fungus Cryptococcus as a model for studies of spore germination, fungal reproduction and fungal pathogenesis. Using cutting-edge biochemical, genetic, molecular, bioinformatic and bioengineering approaches, the lab has made discoveries in key areas of fungal biology, including how infectious spores are formed and mature during sexual development, how spores survive in hostile environments to spread to new ones, and how spores infect the lungs and spread to other organs in the body. These discoveries led the lab to develop new assays for use in high-throughput screening of small molecules to identify novel inhibitors of fungal pathways and create opportunities for the development of new, much needed antifungal drugs.
What excites you about your work?
“The opportunity to make new discoveries every day about the fundamental properties of life on Earth is exciting. Being able to take our discoveries and join them with emerging technologies in science to create something new to solve a critical problem, such as the development of a new drug to prevent fungal infectious diseases, is thrilling.”
What do you hope to achieve?
“I hope to change the conversations around invasive fungal diseases and encourage clinicians, patients and researchers to think more about prevention. If a spore enters the lung, it’s not going to cause disease unless it can grow. If we develop drugs to prevent fungi from getting a foothold in the first place by inhibiting spore germination, we can prevent many fatal diseases in vulnerable patients and ultimately save lives.”
Christina’s approach to preventing fungal diseases before they become a problem is critical in these times when pathogenic fungi are expanding their prevalence, often in response to climate and weather pattern changes.
– Jennifer Gottwald, WARF, Director of Licensing
Want to learn more?
Jennifer Gottwald, [email protected], 608.960.9854