• @Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
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    9 months ago

    In short, fungi are much more closely related evolutionarily speaking to animals than bacteria are. It’s harder to find substances that are toxic to fungal cells but not to animal cells because of the similarity between the two. Even our current anti fungals tend to have high rates of adverse affects and a lower therapeutic index as it is (meaning the line between helpful vs poisonous is pretty close for many of those drugs).

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    19 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    It couldn’t come at a more important time: In recent years, the potential danger fungal infections pose to human health has become more and more apparent, as fungi either evolve to evade treatments or spread beyond their typical geographical regions.

    If a fungus is regularly exposed to fungicide meant to kill it — many fungi that can infect  the human body also thrive in soil and decaying plant matter — it can develop resistance to it.

    Anna Selmecki, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Minnesota Medical School, was blunt about the dire need for more drugs that can effectively combat fungi.

    Studies so far have shown the drug to be effective against the fungus that causes Valley fever, as well as a rare emerging fungal infection called lomentosporiosis that’s been linked to organ transplants.

    “Olorofim is probably the most promising antifungal,” said Dallas Smith, an epidemiologist with the Mycotic Diseases Branch of the CDC, noting that the drug has shown to be effective against “almost every single fungal infection.”

    The agency expects to finalize the framework by the end of this year, Remmington Belford, the EPA press secretary, told NBC News in an emailed statement.


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