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Aspergillus Website Blog Moved

2015-01-27T07:45:00.000-08:00

Please note the Aspergillus Website Blog, which has been run here for several years has now moved to the Aspergillus Website.

You will be able to search all of our posts at our new location and also browse around the very large resources on the Aspergillus Website while you are there.

Enjoy!
Source : BangJekBlog

Antifungal Combination Therapy: A Step Forward

2015-01-23T03:02:00.000-08:00

Combination therapy for IA benefits the moderately ill patients most
The first large (454 participants) randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter trial study on combination therapy shows a 11% improvement in survival at 6 weeks (which is a 42% improvement compared with treating with voriconazole alone). All patients received voriconazole and half also received anidulafungin.

Could fungus be the next big killer? Experts warn fungal diseases now cause more deaths than malaria and tuberculosis

2015-01-22T03:12:00.000-08:00

The Daily Mail (UK national newspaper) recently published the following story based on four main points made by Professor Rosemary Barnes of Cardiff University:

Figures show fungal diseases cause hundreds of thousands of deaths
Death often follows severe respiratory illness and infections of the blood
Experts warn fungi kill more people than malaria and tuberculosis globally
They also destroy

Poor Ventilation of Homes Causes Health Problems for the Occupants

2015-01-13T07:40:00.000-08:00

53% of homes in the East of England are affected by mould, according to a recent survey. Although this relies on self reported impressions of owners own homes and we do not know how many were polled to form this satistic, this is still quite a shocking statistic.

Many of us would probably say that poorly maintained homes and the rental market are probably the main properties that are likely to

The Larget Living Thing on Earth - a Fungus!

2015-01-12T08:36:00.000-08:00

If you were asked what the largest living thing was what would you guess?

The Blue Whale?

A Canadian Redwood?

The Blue Whale IS pretty big at 24m in length and its tongue alone is the size of an African Elephant. Canadian Redwood trees are huge at 100m in height but neither come close to the current largest living thing on earth!

You might think fungi are pretty small and certainly

Energy Efficient Homes Are Also Asthma Causing Homes

2014-12-23T01:00:00.000-08:00

The UK government have for some time been supporting (by deed and funding) the construction and renovation of our homes so that they meet very strict energy efficiency requirements. As a direct consequence insulation has been lavishly funded while there has been little or no emphasis on introducing fresh air into properties i.e. via ventilation - presumably because ventilation can cause heat

Allergy to Christmas Tree's Is Not Only Caused By Moulds

2014-12-22T05:35:00.000-08:00

Some years ago and more recently in the media it has been noted that small studies on mould found on live Christmas tree's brought into the home for the festive period suggest that the amount of moulds on the tree slowly increased over the days it spends in your home. We recommended at the time that as a result it would be best if people who are sensitive to moulds remove these trees after 7

Turn Plastics into Food - Using Fungi!

2014-12-19T01:00:00.000-08:00

Microbiologists and two designers have come up with a device dubbed the Fungi Mutarium, which is capable of turning biodegradable plastic into -- hold your breath -- edible mushrooms!

The Fungi Mutarium is the brainchild of Livin, an Austrian design studio, and Utrecht University, which aimed to create a device that could break down man-made trash and at the same time grow tasty edibles.

The

Environmentally Friendly Nanotechnology using Fungi

2014-12-18T08:19:00.000-08:00

Nanotechnology is a rapidly developing science and a number of methods are now available for producing nanoparticles. However, some of these methods employ high energy requirements, low material conversions and the use of hazardous chemicals. Hence, there is a growing need to develop eco-friendly nanoparticle synthesis methods.
Biosynthetic methods such as those that employ plant extracts or

Chocolate Frosty Pod Rot = World Shortage of Chocolate!

2014-12-09T05:26:00.000-08:00

Originally reported by Jennifer Frazer in the Scientific American Journal:

For a long time frosty pod rot was relatively confined to Colombia, Ecuador, and western Venezuela in northwest South America. Since the 1950s, it has spread throughout South and Central America, reaching Panama in 1956, Costa Rica in 1978, Nicaragua in 1980, Peru in 1988, Honduras in 1997, Guatemala in 2002, Belize

Welcome Research Funding: Change of Approach

2014-12-08T05:33:00.000-08:00

Refreshing our funding framework
Jeremy Farrar has announced a refreshed funding framework. The most significant changes include a clearer distinction between strategic and responsive funding, a major new scheme for collaborative research by teams, seed funding to support the generation of new ideas, more opportunities for the research leaders of the future and the merging of our New

Damp Causes Mould Problems and Fire Hazard!

2014-12-08T05:06:00.000-08:00

Reported during particularly wet weather in Montana, USA by Emily Glunk, MSU Extension Forage Specialist:

Following the large amounts of rain received throughout Montana in recent days, MSU Extension has received reports of heating and molding of hay bales that have been stacked and stored outside. Problems following heating and water damage of hay include spontaneous hay fires; quality loss

World AIDS Day: Global Action Fund for Fungal Infections requests WHO includes Itraconazole on EML

2014-12-02T08:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday (Dec 1st) was World AIDS Day and the pioneering health charity GAFFI lobbied the WHO to include Itraconazole on the Essential Medicines List (EML), this would help hundreds of thousands of AIDS and HIV positive patients worldwide.
GAFFI’s application to the WHO, was in collaboration with the International Foundation for Dermatology and pinpointed key fungal diseases with AIDS, for

The Fungal Internet - Millions of Years Old

2014-11-27T06:21:00.000-08:00

Hidden under your feet is an information superhighway that allows plants to communicate and help each other out. It’s made of fungi!

The BBC have released an article summarising and putting into context a series of observations made about the ability many plants have to form intimate relationships with fungi growing around their roots.

Mycorrhiza have been known for many years now as a

Bagpipers Urged to Keep Their Pipes Clean of Fungi

2014-11-26T05:29:00.000-08:00

WARNING: your bagpipes may kill you!
Leading piping organisations have issued a hygiene alert after a piper was hospitalised for four weeks having contracted a potentially fatal lung infection… from his bagpipes.

John Shone, an expert in classical piping, first learned to play while a member of the Boys’ Brigade seven decades ago and has practised daily ever since.

But the 77-year-old’s

Aspergillus Protease Allergens have a Role in Asthma

2014-11-25T05:17:00.000-08:00

Asthma is a debilitating disease characterised by airway inflammation, hyperresponsiveness and bronchoconstriction leading to symptoms such as wheeze, cough and breathlessness, and in severe cases even death.

Adults with severe asthma have significantly greater test reactivity to fungi (incl. Aspergillus fumigatus) compared with other well established allergens eg house dust mite and 50% of

A New Direction for Antibiotic Development Thanks to Fungi

2014-11-18T10:26:00.000-08:00

Could there be a new form of antibiotic? Scientists have
identified a new substance with antibiotic tendencies. Typical antibiotics are
non-protein organic compounds, but this new substance has been found to be a
protein called copsin.

Copsin has been isolated from a common inky cap mushroom
Coprinopsis cinerea, a fungus that grows on horse dung. Research found that
copsin was the

Flying Fungus - Covert Mycelia!

2014-11-15T10:35:00.000-08:00

Drones (unmanned remotely controlled aircraft on which equipment such as cameras are mounted) have been used by the military for some time for high level surveillance tasks, but now are increasingly available to civil authorities and members of the public, though their use is subject to strict regulations in the UK.

A student team has
recently created a drone that consists of the

Toxic Mould in Herbal Medicines

2014-11-07T10:53:00.000-08:00

Dried herbal medicines

It is estimated that the herbal medicine industry is worth
$60 billion. Over 60% of people use medicinal plants to treat illnesses and
relieve pain, but with the majority of medicinal plants unregulated, what could
those people also be exposing themselves to.

A new study has found 43% of the plants naturally
contaminated with toxins, 30% of these being

Aflatoxin, an Invisible Food Hazard?

2014-10-31T09:57:00.000-07:00

Part of the popular media have long been making much out of the fact that fungi such as Aspergillus can produce highly toxic compounds when growing under the right conditions. The right conditions can cause contamination on plant material that forms part of our food chain, so it follows that these toxins are poisoning us. Can this be correct?

There is certainly plenty of evidence that if left

Wikipedia as the Front Matter to all Research for Public Use

2014-10-24T04:38:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia is a initiative that has become extremely successful at providing encyclopedic coverage of almost any subject you might be find interesting or useful. It has a very simple modus operandi in that it permits anyone to write articles on any subject they wish. Others are then given open permission to edit those articles. No-one owns any part of the project, neutrality and freedom are

Fungi Transform Waste into Biofuel

2014-10-22T04:46:00.000-07:00

Wine waste

This article was originally written by Lea Kivivali on Phys.org

Researchers at Swinburne University of Technology have developed a technique for converting winery waste into compounds that could have potential value as biofuels or medicines.

Australia is the world's sixth largest wine producer, with around 1.75 million tonnes of grapes crushed for wine every year. After the final

Omalizumab: a New Treatment Option for Allergic Bronchopulmonary Aspergillosis (ABPA)

2014-10-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

ABPA is an allergic infection of the airways. It is not yet clear why some people get ABPA while most of us do not as the infecting mould is inhaled by nearly all of us on a daily basis. For most of us this is not a problem as our lungs are lined with protective immune cells that destroy the mould before its can establish itself, but for those rare few with ABPA this did not happen and the

Detecting Fungus in the CF Patient Environment A Rising Concern

2014-10-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

A recent paper released by the team here at the National Aspergillosis Centre has raised concern in the cystic fibrosis community that there may be many cases of Aspergillus infection amongst people living with CF that are going undetected.

This article, originally written by Maureen Newman discusses the implications:

In light of the news that almost 50% of cystic fibrosis patients are

US IDSA Calls for Increased Emphasis on the Fight Against Antibiotic Resistance

2014-09-30T04:31:00.000-07:00

As we have all become used to taking antibiotics for infections we tend to take them for granted. However awareness is growing that more and more antibiotics are being rendered useless by the rise of strains of fungi & bacteria that are resistant to one or more antibiotics.

Compounding the problem is the fact that few drug companies are voluntarily developing new antibiotics. One of the