James Kronstad

James Kronstad is a Professor in the Michael Smith Laboratories (MSL) and the Dept. of Microbiology & Immunology at UBC-Vancouver. He served as Director of the MSL from 2008 to 2017. His current research efforts focus on understanding mechanisms of pathogenesis for fungi that threaten human health including Cryptococcus neoformans, the cause of life-threatening meningitis in immunocompromised people (e.g., HIV/AIDS patients). With funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (U.S.) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Kronstad group has established a detailed understanding of nutrient acquisition during fungal colonization of host tissue. For example, a recent study in Nature Microbiology characterized the impact of glutathione on the virulence of C. neoformans and highlighted the importance of redox homeostasis and metabolic compensation in adaptation to the mammalian host environment. Dr. Kronstad is a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Scholar, the Power Corporation Fellow of the CIFAR program: Fungal Kingdom, Threats & Opportunities, and a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.