Fiocruz and Pasteur will study fungi in humans

The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and the Pasteur Institute have signed a partnership to research, for the next five years, how mushrooms cause harm to humans and to help people suffering from fungal diseases.

The studies will be conducted by an international unit of the Pasteur Institute, which will be based at the Carlos Chagas Institute in Paraná. The contract was signed in April this year. The institutions will also have the support of the University of Birmingham, England.

Brazilian discovery

The French institute’s unit’s implementation in Brazil followed a discovery by Brazilian researchers. Fifteen years ago, a Brazilian group identified, for the first time, the existence of extracellular vesicles in fungi.

Later it was discovered that the vesicles are used by fungi as vehicles to attack and cause damage to the human organism.

According to the coordinator of Fiocruz Paraná, Marcio RodríguezSubsequent research, developed by the French and British, indicates that the vesicles can be used for studies on vaccines and resistance to antifungal drugs.

‘Our main study model is the Cryptococcus fungus, which causes very lethal brain infections. But these vesicles appear to be produced by all the fungi studied so far. This is a general and essential feature for fungal biology.’explains the researcher in a Fiocruz publication.