Grant: Project Grant

Fungal infections remain a heavy burden on our healthcare system, with high mortality rates and very limited treatment options. The discovery of new antifungal drugs has largely focused on natural products produced by free-living soil bacteria. However, antifungals identified from free-living bacteria frequently exhibit high animal toxicity, greatly impacting their potential as new antifungal drugs. The overarching goal of this project is to determine if the antifungals derived from bacteria that form symbiotic associations with insects exhibit significantly higher safety compared to the traditional source, free-living soil bacteria. Establishing insect symbiotic bacteria as a source of less toxic antifungals has the potential to transform the discovery and development antifungal drugs. Additionally, the antifungals characterized in this proposal themselves have applications as new therapeutic treatments for clinical fungal treatments both in Canada and globally.