Use of novel hybrid lectibodies to fight cryptococcosis

Fungal diseases affect more than a billion people worldwide, yet the responsible pathogens receive little attention and relatively low research support to improve diagnosis and treatment. For example, no vaccines are available for fungal diseases and only a few drugs of limited effectiveness are in clinical use. One of the most important fungal diseases is cryptococcosis, a severe brain infection that occurs in people with weakened immune systems (e.g., individuals suffering from HIV/AIDS). The causative pathogenic fungus is Cryptococcus neoformans and this fungus was recently identified as a pathogen of critical health importance by the World Health Organization. This is because cryptococcosis is responsible for ~19% of all deaths in people with HIV/AIDS. The treatment of cryptococcosis challenging due to the limited number of effective antifungal drugs and emerging drug resistance. To address this challenge, a pan-Canadian leadership team (Drs. Kronstad and Penninger at UBC and Dr. Sheppard at McGill) established a collaboration to develop and apply a new class of hybrid antibodies for the treatment of cryptococcosis. This team has decades of experience in medical mycology, glycobiology, and therapeutic approaches to combat infectious and other diseases. In addition to the leadership team, the experimental team consists of three highly trained personnel at the PhD, postdoctoral fellow, and research associate levels. These scientists each bring valued expertise from microbial, immunological, and biochemical backgrounds to approach this multifaceted project. The PhD student and the postdoctoral fellow will carry out their research efforts on the UBC Vancouver campus in the Life Sciences Institute and the Michael Smith Laboratories. Initial studies have already identified and characterized a collection of hybrid antibodies that are effective at binding to cells of C. neoformans. Further characterization will evaluate the ability of the antibodies to protect against cryptococcosis.