Microbe Talk: Cryptococcus neoformans – The Pigeon Fungus

Posted on March 29, 2019   by Matt Bassett

On this month’s podcast, we discuss the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans with Dr Liz Ballou from the University of Birmingham.

In January 2019, news broke that two patients at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow had tragically passed away. When tested, both patients showed signs of a fungal infection caused by Cryptococcus neoformans. One of the patients’ deaths was unrelated to the infection, however it was a contributing factor to the death of the second patient.

This month we talked to fungal geneticist Dr Ballou; she researches how human fungal pathogens, specifically C. neoformans, survive and cause disease in the host. We discussed C. neoformans research, the lifecycle of the fungus, and the disease it can cause.