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Fungal Research Trust activities
• Aim to Build a Centre of Excellence
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Direct research support
Direct clinical fungal lab support
Postgraduate training
Support of “Fungal” conferences
Travel Grants for conferences
Aspergillus website sponsor
Direct Research Support
• 6 UK institutions – Universities of Manchester,
London (Imperial and Birbeck), Aberystwyth,
Glasgow, and Kew Gardens
• European Society for Clinical Microbiology and
Infectious Diseases and European Organisation for
Research and Treatment of Cancer
• ~ £1M spent over 12 years
• Major facilitating role
- assisting UK survey of fungi (Kew Gardens),
- enabling genomic sequencing Aspergillus (Manchester)
Major discoveries
• >80 research publications
•Tissue damaging enzymes from Aspergillus (1996)
• Resistance in Aspergillus (1997)
• Random method of knocking out genes in
Aspergillus for new drug discovery (2001)
• Importance of fungal infection of diabetic feet (2001)
• Innate immune defect in ‘normal’ people with chronic
aspergillosis (2001)
• Increased disease in Candida with a gene knockout
(2004)
Direct clinical fungal lab support
• Built and partially maintained a national service for
antifungal testing since 1991
• Made a major contribution internationally to
describing resistance tests
• Contributed directly to the European standard for
resistance testing
• Determined the need for monitoring of antifungal
levels of voriconazole and validated new
testing procedures
• Contributed to training of Clinical Scientists
Postgraduate degrees
• 11 PhD’s (3 more on the way)
• 4 MSc’s
• 2 MD’s
Founded 1998,
only website
devoted to the
disease and
organism
causing it,
comprehensive
Patients section of the Aspergillus website
Founded 1998,
only website
devoted to the
disease and
organism
causing it,
comprehensive
Founded 1998,
only website
devoted to the
disease and
organism
causing it,
comprehensive
Image section of the Aspergillus website
Aspergillus Website Statistics 2000-2004
Number of pages served per month .
160000
140000
120000
100000
80000
60000
40000
20000
0
Jan-00 Jul-00
Jan-01
Jul-01
Jan-02
Jul-02
Jan-03 Jul-03
Jan-04
Where do we want to go?
•Need for more primary research
– connection between fungi and Asthma is relatively
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poorly understood and appears rarely in the
scientific literature
risk factors
•Need more research into:
– better diagnostic tools
– earlier and more accurate detection
• Research into aspergillus in children - a major
killer in childhood leukemia
• Need to support young clinical scientists
Where do we want to go?
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All this needs dedication and vision and
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MONEY
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Fungal Research Trust spends < 5% on overheads
•12 current applications for £2.1M needing funding
•The Fungal Research Trust stepping up a gear