FUNgalSnelders lab

A. fumigatus is ubiquitously found in nature facilitated by wind-borne dispersal of spores and its main habitat is decaying plant material. It can also cause severe invasive infections in the lungs of immunocompromised patients. Luckily there are highly effective antifungal drugs available and the azoles are the most important class to manage Aspergillus disease. Unfortunately a global emergence of azole resistance poses a major threat to manage fungal disease. Our research has shown that the use of agricultural azoles has facilitated emergence of azole resistance, a typical One Health problem. For our research we study the fungus where environment and human health interact by using genetic approaches such as sexual crosses, evolutionary lines, competition experiments, whole genome sequencing, bioinformatics and more.

We are involved in the NWO GreenIII project entitled “One health consequences of circularity; what lessons to learn from the saprophytic and human pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus?” The objectives of this project are to (i) use the diversity of organic waste disposal in the bulb-sector to discern the key factors driving resistance development, (ii) use these factors to draw up an intervention plan that will be tested in the laboratory and on-site, and (iii) extend the obtained knowledge to general organic waste disposal to assess resistance and health risk across the system. Hylke Kortenbosch is appointed as the PhD student on this project.

With the NWO Aspasia funding we have now set up CRISPRcas9 in our laboratory (BSLII), by receiving technical support from Dr. Francisca Reyes Marquez. By receiving an NWO ENW-M1 funding in 2023, that is intended for conducting curiosity-driven fundamental scientific research with an impact, we will focus more broadly on which genes in the fungus cause multi fungicide resistance (not just azole resistance) and what the long-term consequences are for the treatment of fungal infections in hospitals and for crop protection in agriculture. This funding also allows us to implement the Galleria Mellonella virulence model. In November 2023, we received a JPI-AMR Distomos grant for the project GAF-AFR. Here, together with six international partners, we will develop tools to detect the emergence of dual-use antifungal resistance and provide appropriate risk assessments strategies. In addition, we aim to bridge the gap between environment and patient by using air sampling surveillance to investigate the exposure risk of antifungal resistant A. fumigatus in a wide range of geographical areas (including EU and Africa). The project has kicked-off June 1st 2024.