• Question: what is your favorite virus, fungi or disease that you have studied?

    Asked by Potato to Danielle on 11 Jan 2022.
    • Photo: Danielle Nader

      Danielle Nader answered on 11 Jan 2022:

      Hi Potato 🙂

      My favorite fungi is Candida albicans. It is a very complicated fungus because it has 3 different forms that it can switch between. One form is tiny and oval (like a potato), and it is very sticky, meaning it works best to attach to our cells. The next form is the intermediate one, and the final form has long string-like tubes that help to penetrate cells to cause damage.

      I work on a specific disease that many microbes cause- this is called sepsis. It happens when a microbe enters the bloodstream during infection, and the host responds very violently for a long period of time. It’s pretty interesting because death caused by sepsis is caused by the host itself, when the body cannot sustain all the damage and ”mini-bombs” going off across all the different organs.

Comments

  • Photo: Christopher

    Christopher commented on :

    Great question, I would say the most interesting and best one I have studied is the zombie-ant fungus or Ophiocordyceps unilateralis.

    Its a fungus that exists deep in the Jungles of South America mostly and when the fungus infects an ant, it grows through its body, draining it of nutrients and hijacking its mind. It makes the ant leave the safety of its nest and climb a nearby plant and makes it stop at 25 centimeters high—a zone with precisely the right temperature and humidity for the fungus to grow.
    It then forces the ant to permanently lock its mandibles around a leaf, eventually sending a long stalk bursting through the ant’s head, growing into a bulbous capsule full of spores. And because the ant typically climbs a leaf that overhangs its colony’s foraging trails, the fungal spores rain down onto its sisters below, zombifying them in turn.

    Pretty cool! Scary but cool!