Aspergillus fumigatus

So let's dive a little bit deeper.

Let's take the case of Aspergillus fumigatus.

It's a mold that lives in soil and compost and decaying vegetation, so it's, it's a fungus, it's a mold, and it's kind of everywhere.

And the thing is, this fungus, if it encounters a antifungal agent that's like an azole, it doesn't really matter if it comes from a hospital or a field.

And if it sort of grows up in the environment with a lot of agricultural azole fungicide use, that can mean that the, the population of Aspergillus fumigatus that is around starts to develop resistance.

And then, okay, so then the one that's around in the environment starts to develop resistance.

That's a problem for crops, right? Well, the thing is, people can also inhale already resistant fungal spores without actually even ever having touched an antifungal drug themselves, and then if those spores grow out and cause a lung infection, it may be difficult or impossible to treat with the antifungal options in the hospital, like medical triazoles.

Exactly, yeah.

And so, you know, the, coming out of a shipping container, it is not likely to go out and, you know, there aren't any deserts in Taiwan, and, you know, it, it's probably not gonna happen.

But there's another bug called Aspergillus fumigatus.

Aspergillus fumigatus is found worldwide, but there is a certain strain of Aspergillus fumigatus that has become drug-resistant because the fungicides that we use on our crops are very similar to the antifungal drugs that we use in our patients.

And this resistant Aspergillus fumigatus, like those other two bugs, has started circulating the globe.

Um, Aspergillus fumigatus spores have been found in the jet stream.

And so, you know, you imagine you get picked up behind the, the vacuum behind a jet, you get up to the jet stream, and you can literally be, be distributed anywhere in the world.

And when we look at whole genome sequencing, what we see is these mutations that are associated with fungicide use probably only arose once, and then it has been spread around the world.

Um, we found it here in the soil in, in Georgia in a peanut farm.