Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Mini Parasites Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show The Last of Us more
Speaker 1: like the Best Fungus, We're talking about O Field Cordyceps
Speaker 1: and other fungi as we explore the possibilities of a
Speaker 1: fungal infection taking control of the brain. Could there be
Speaker 1: a fungal zombie apocalypse such as is depicted in the
Speaker 1: Last of Us? Is ofield cord Aceps real and how
Speaker 1: does it function in nature? How much do humans need
Speaker 1: to fear the fungus? Discover this and more as we
Speaker 1: answer the age old question can ants contemplate the horrors
Speaker 1: of their existence? Joining me to help answer these questions
Speaker 1: is Infectious Diseases doctor and self described budding mycologist, Professor
Speaker 1: David Bulwer. Welcome.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's great to be here. Thank you for the invite.
Speaker 1: I really like how you call yourself a budding mycologist.
Speaker 1: Don't think I missed that little fungus pun.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's it is. I'm still budding. I think there's
Speaker 2: a lot to learn. I think that's that's really what
Speaker 2: the pun is about there's a lot to learn about fungus,
Speaker 2: and so I'm still learning along the way.
Speaker 1: I mean absolutely, I am also learning about fungus. I'm
Speaker 1: by no means a fungal expert. I do know specifically
Speaker 1: about Ofio cordyceps because of how famous it is in
Speaker 1: terms of its effects on ants. But fungus is it
Speaker 1: is such a I mean, first of all, it's an
Speaker 1: incredibly diverse group of organisms. So a you have just
Speaker 1: by knowing one type of fungus. It's not like you
Speaker 1: know the entire fungal uh you know group. It's They're
Speaker 1: very diverse, and they're all they all function in very
Speaker 1: weird in different ways. I don't know how anyone can
Speaker 1: ever have a total mastery over fungus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I certainly a talent. Unfortunately, the majority of you know,
Speaker 2: fungus doesn't cause disease in humans. There's you know, hundreds
Speaker 2: and millions of species of fungi which are distinct from
Speaker 2: plants and distinct from animals in their own kingdom, but
Speaker 2: only handful of them actually cause pathologic disease in humans.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I think that is really important to note.
Speaker 1: It's not as if they are all out to get us.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like when people think of bats as
Speaker 1: being all these blood sucking, bloodthirsty little creatures, and it's
Speaker 1: like the majority most bat species are either nectivorous, frugivorous,
Speaker 1: or insectivorous. There's only one or two species that actually
Speaker 1: drink blood, and so they get this like creepy bad rap,
Speaker 1: But most of them are not what people think. And
Speaker 1: it's the same thing with fungus. They most fungus is good,
Speaker 1: I mean or neutral. It's not something we have to
Speaker 1: worry about. So in the very popular TV so it
Speaker 1: actually came from a video game called The Last of Us.
Speaker 1: It depicts a pandemic zombie apocalypse. The fungus in the show,
Speaker 1: a species of ophiocort Aceps contaminated food at a cereal
Speaker 1: factory I think in Jakarta and then spread globally when
Speaker 1: people ate the contaminated food. This is all fictional, don't panic.
Speaker 1: People started showing signs of aggression, biting or killing others.
Speaker 1: There's a mycologist in a show that determined it was
Speaker 1: ofio coort Aceps, which typically infects arthropods. So arthropods are
Speaker 1: invertebrates like insects, and spiders, and then it takes control
Speaker 1: of their behavior of their bodies. But somehow, in this
Speaker 1: fictional world, the o Fio cord Aceps jumps to humans,
Speaker 1: infects humans, takes over their brains, and drives people to
Speaker 1: violently kill or bite other people, thus infecting them, you know,
Speaker 1: the classic zombie trope and the infect kind of a
Speaker 1: twist on that those that the infected humans slowly become
Speaker 1: subsumed by this fungus, becoming coded and fun It's kind
Speaker 1: of funny because when I look at the visuals of
Speaker 1: the show, kind of looks like not just one species
Speaker 1: of fungus, it looks like all sorts of different species covering.
Speaker 1: I mean, for the visual impact, I think it is cool,
Speaker 1: if not a little bit unrealistic. But yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: that their whole bodies get covered in this fungus and
Speaker 1: then they spread it through biting people or like I guess,
Speaker 1: kind of mouth to mouth fillament transmission, which is an
Speaker 1: interesting twist on it. Have you have you seen the
Speaker 1: show at all? Doctors?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and really I have not seen the show. When
Speaker 2: it came out, I was I was out of the country,
Speaker 2: and I have not gone back to track of town
Speaker 2: and lash it. So, but I've heard of a lot
Speaker 2: about it, so it seems very entertaining. You know, maybe
Speaker 2: not factually accurate, but you know that's it's entertainment value.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. I mean I could still enjoy it, even
Speaker 1: though throughout the first episode I kept leaning over to
Speaker 1: my husband and commenting like, no, that doesn't make sense. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't make sense, but you know it's I still
Speaker 1: really like that they incorporate some actual, like some reference
Speaker 1: to an actual fungus. That's that's neat. I think it
Speaker 1: makes people curious about that kind of thing and then
Speaker 1: want to find out more about it, which is what
Speaker 1: we are going to try to do. So Ofio Cortaceps
Speaker 1: is a real genus of fungus and a fascinating one
Speaker 1: that we've talked about on the show before, but it
Speaker 1: is not quite as the HBO show depicts it. So
Speaker 1: the most famous species of Opiod Cordyceps is Ofio Cortaceps unilateralists.
Speaker 1: It is also called the zombie ant fungus, and it
Speaker 1: is indeed exceedingly spooky. It is found in tropical forests
Speaker 1: all over the world and infects ants of a specific
Speaker 1: species Campanodas leonardi. While they can infect other species of ants,
Speaker 1: the fungus are most optimized for this one. So, while
Speaker 1: foraging on the forest floor, an ant will pick up
Speaker 1: spores like little pieces of lint on its body, and
Speaker 1: the spore uses enzymes to break down the ants exoskeleton
Speaker 1: and it works its way into the ant's body, which
Speaker 1: is a kind of exfoliation that you definitely don't want
Speaker 1: in this situation. These spores will develop inside the ant's
Speaker 1: body into fungal growths and infect the ants soft tissues,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily its brain. That's something of a misconception.
Speaker 1: While it does seem to alter the ant's central nervous system,
Speaker 1: it doesn't require the fungus to actually be growing inside
Speaker 1: of its brain. It's infiltrating all of the ants soft tissues. Also,
Speaker 1: it can grow like in its head, but it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a physical presence in the brain that is causing
Speaker 1: the ants behavior to be modified. It as these compounds
Speaker 1: that the fungus is releasing. So some of the behavioral
Speaker 1: modifications that will happen is that the ants will convulse
Speaker 1: and fall from the tree where usually their nest is,
Speaker 1: onto the forest floor. Then the ants will climb up
Speaker 1: a plant stem. They will grip onto the underside of
Speaker 1: the leaf. Usually there's like a vein on the underside
Speaker 1: of the leaf that they clamp down on with its mandibles,
Speaker 1: specifically on the north side of the plant, which is interesting.
Speaker 1: There's some speculation that it optimizes where it grips for
Speaker 1: moisture levels and temperature being ideal for the fungus. And
Speaker 1: it will stay there until the fungus overcomes the ant
Speaker 1: and kind of grows into this. You know, it looks
Speaker 1: very creepy, this sort of ant covered in fungus gripped
Speaker 1: onto this leaf. The ofio Cordyceps universalis will grow its
Speaker 1: hyphe into the ant. And Hyphae are these branching, vein
Speaker 1: like structures of a fungus. They're also known as filaments,
Speaker 1: which allows the fungus to expand and transport nutrients. In
Speaker 1: a group of hyphae is called a micellium. The ant
Speaker 1: becomes overwhelmed by the micellium, which also roots the ant
Speaker 1: to the leaf, and then finally, after around four to
Speaker 1: ten days, a fruiting body or bodies will grow from
Speaker 1: the ant, which looks like a little stem with a
Speaker 1: bulb on top and then that will distribute the spores. So, uh,
Speaker 1: while this fungus is called the zombie ant fungus. Once
Speaker 1: the ant is dead, it's just dead. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: reanimate this this dead ant. So do we so, doctor will,
Speaker 1: where do we see any kind of fungus like this
Speaker 1: in humans that takes like takes over our brains and
Speaker 1: our bodies and controls us in this way?
Speaker 2: Oh exactly. I mean there are certain types of fungus
Speaker 2: that can cause infections of the brain, and they can
Speaker 2: alter people's behavior certainly, but usually they just make people
Speaker 2: really really sick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. And one thing that's interesting
Speaker 1: to me is that this is definitely a scary thing
Speaker 1: that is real, right, this is a real fungus. But
Speaker 1: the only animals it seems like that it seems to
Speaker 1: have this kind of specific control over are arthropods insects,
Speaker 1: And so is it when we see something that impacts
Speaker 1: a an arthropod or an insect or a spider, Like,
Speaker 1: how typical is it for diseases or something that is
Speaker 1: like zoonotic to originate from an insect versus something that
Speaker 1: is closer to us on the evolutionary tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a lot of things, a lot of fun
Speaker 2: Fungus can affect cold blooded animals and cold blooded you know, insects,
Speaker 2: et cetera. And one of the theories behind why are
Speaker 2: mammals warm blooded is that that the temperature difference protects
Speaker 2: us against bungle diseases. And so that's sort of one
Speaker 2: of the hypotheses and theories of why sort of mammals
Speaker 2: sort of escaped after sort of you know, sort of
Speaker 2: the great sort of the dinosaurs and sort of you know,
Speaker 2: the meteorites sort of striking the earth and sort of
Speaker 2: causing sort of dust clouds and all the plants dying
Speaker 2: off with that. Then fungus is sort of a big
Speaker 2: part of decaying plant matter, and so breaking down plants
Speaker 2: and sort of that process of decay is what fungi
Speaker 2: normally do in the environment. And so one of the
Speaker 2: theories of why then mammals sort of exploded and sort
Speaker 2: of took off after that is the temperature difference. Being
Speaker 2: warm blooded protects us from fungus because most fungus does
Speaker 2: not grow very well at ninety eight degrees temperature.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting, I mean, it kind of makes sense too.
Speaker 1: Then that when we see this specific ant controlling behavior
Speaker 1: or something like OFEO. Cortyceps, it actually directs the ant
Speaker 1: to a very specific part of the forest floor. It's
Speaker 1: not content to just infect the ant wherever it is
Speaker 1: and the ant, you know, sprouts the fruiting body. It
Speaker 1: has evolved to kind of modulate the ant's behavior in
Speaker 1: such a way that the ant goes to like the
Speaker 1: underside of a leaf somewhere, whether there's the right amount
Speaker 1: of humidity, the right temperature, because really it wants kind
Speaker 1: of a ideal environment for itself. So to somehow be
Speaker 1: able to jump to a human and infect a human,
Speaker 1: it would require that it overcome this need for this
Speaker 1: very specific temperature range. And it seems that seems quite
Speaker 1: difficult to make such a leap.
Speaker 2: It to us, and so most most fungus doesn't do that.
Speaker 2: But you know, one of the concerns with global warming
Speaker 2: is that the ambient temperature and the environment humans and
Speaker 2: many places of the globe is coming closer and closer together.
Speaker 2: Such things that can live in the environment quite happily,
Speaker 2: there may be a selection pressure where they can jump
Speaker 2: to humans. And so at present, I'm in Minnesota, there's
Speaker 2: a big difference between ancient temperature outside and the environment
Speaker 2: and what it is in the body. But in other
Speaker 2: places around the world you've got high temperatures and so
Speaker 2: that that bearer may be less.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. I mean we have seen that in
Speaker 1: animals where the change in climate will change the situation
Speaker 1: that that animal has with something like a bacteria from
Speaker 1: being basically they can sort of coexist to it overwhelming
Speaker 1: the animal, like the syga antelope, which was able to
Speaker 1: co exist with a bacteria that would live it. They're
Speaker 1: these so sayga antelope or these really interesting animals. They
Speaker 1: have these huge proboscises. It looks like the beginnings of
Speaker 1: an elephant trun but then it just kind of stops.
Speaker 1: And you know these these proboscises are they breathe in
Speaker 1: a lot of air and they kind of like cool
Speaker 1: down the air or warm up the air, depending on
Speaker 1: like their needs. It's like a portable air conditioners slash
Speaker 1: heater unit. And so in their noses like they would
Speaker 1: there's often like bacteria bacteria well like moist warm areas,
Speaker 1: but they were their immune systems are able to fight
Speaker 1: off the bacteria in their nose when it's at a
Speaker 1: certain level, but when it's above a certain level, they
Speaker 1: can no longer fight it off. And the temperature change.
Speaker 1: The temperature just being a little bit warmer made conditions
Speaker 1: a little bit better for this bacteria. And so you
Speaker 1: had whole herds of siga antelope just dropping dead mysteriously
Speaker 1: like it was very, very creepy because you'd have this
Speaker 1: entire herd of antelope just dead on the ground and
Speaker 1: finding out that it's because well, the temperature is a
Speaker 1: little higher, so the bacteria was able to thrive a
Speaker 1: little that are it is creepy and it is a
Speaker 1: little bit spooky. This idea that fungus uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if it is driven a little bit towards being able
Speaker 1: to exist in a warmer environment, then it would potentially
Speaker 1: be more of a risk to humans.
Speaker 2: I very mentioned so that that's a little bit of
Speaker 2: a concern. And and so some of the you know,
Speaker 2: environmental sort of kind of explosion with back A fungus
Speaker 2: called a Canada Orius in particular is one of those
Speaker 2: that's more thermotolerant. And so one of the theories of
Speaker 2: why that's been selected out and is due to sort
Speaker 2: of the increased temperatures, as well as sort of fundicide
Speaker 2: use a sort of in the environment and agriculture of
Speaker 2: anti fungal agents us used to protect crops.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, I mean, that's kind of reminds me of
Speaker 1: the we have a lot of concerns about the overuse
Speaker 1: of antibacterials and antibiotics. But yeah, the overuse of anti fungals,
Speaker 1: I guess I that that concern I don't hear about
Speaker 1: too much. But how big of a concern do you
Speaker 1: think that is?
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of different So for plants, if
Speaker 2: you think about your tomato plant, like, you can get
Speaker 2: sort of various sort of diseases and a lot of
Speaker 2: those are mold and funguses basically that they can affect
Speaker 2: the plants. And so in agriculture, you know, molds are
Speaker 2: are big deal. Molds are a type of fungus, and
Speaker 2: so there are a number of different you know, anti
Speaker 2: fungal properties. You know, compounds are used for agriculture, and
Speaker 2: so a lot of those are not used in humans,
Speaker 2: but but some of them actually are. They're in the
Speaker 2: same class that we use in humans. And so that
Speaker 2: that alarms me a little bit because we're starting to
Speaker 2: see more and more anti fungal resistance, and so with that,
Speaker 2: I would say, don't use compounds that are using humans
Speaker 2: in agriculture. But that's all.
Speaker 1: Right, I'll stop doing that. Well, uh so we're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break, but when we get we
Speaker 1: will be talking about some of the claims that the
Speaker 1: HBO show makes about fungus and using that kind of
Speaker 1: as a jumping off point to talk more about the
Speaker 1: impacts that fungi can have on human health. So we
Speaker 1: are back, and I am very lucky to be joined
Speaker 1: by Professor David Bulware, who is an infectious diseases doctor
Speaker 1: with an acute awareness of fungus and the risks of fungus.
Speaker 1: And I think that whenever people watch a show like
Speaker 1: The Last of Us, I mean, people know it's fiction,
Speaker 1: people know it's science fiction, but it is it brings
Speaker 1: up these ideas of like of a fungal pandemic, and
Speaker 1: so sometimes the show will say things like in the
Speaker 1: beginning of the show, it talked about one of the
Speaker 1: dangers of this this sort of outbreak of this fungus
Speaker 1: is that they have no treatments for fungal infections. Now,
Speaker 1: before the break, we just talked about the potential over
Speaker 1: use of anti fungals. So already that's not quite accurate, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's not that we don't have anything that treats fungus.
Speaker 1: You can pick it up off the shelf of pharmacy.
Speaker 1: You can get you know, cream for athletes foot, which
Speaker 1: is a type of anti fungal. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Correct? There are a number of anti fungal proper compounds
Speaker 2: and treatments, summer creams, ointment that are topical, and there's
Speaker 2: a handful of them that they're used you know, orally
Speaker 2: or intravenously, but there's not that many real different therapies
Speaker 2: we have. And so there's maybe I don't know a
Speaker 2: dozen or so in total of different anti fungal compounds
Speaker 2: that we use in humans, and it's pretty it's a
Speaker 2: pretty limited scope.
Speaker 1: So maybe the nuance that is sort of lost in
Speaker 1: the you know, zombie Apocalypse show is that yes, we
Speaker 1: do have treatments for a fungus, but maybe they're not
Speaker 1: as specified or as numerous as the treatments we say
Speaker 1: have for viral infections or bacterial infections.
Speaker 2: But we don't have that many treatments for viral infections.
Speaker 2: But we do have a lot of antabatics, and so
Speaker 2: with you know, anti fungal you know medicines. There's sort
Speaker 2: of three or four classes of anti fungal medicines. Some
Speaker 2: of them are pretty toxic, you know, some of them
Speaker 2: are less toxic. But you know, we do see resistance
Speaker 2: and we see some you know, some fungi that could
Speaker 2: be resistant to all three classes of anti fungals.
Speaker 1: I see, and maybe we're not making that situation better
Speaker 1: if we over use anti fungals in agriculture.
Speaker 2: Well it's probably not super helpful, but I mean there
Speaker 2: are different anti fungal things that are not used in
Speaker 2: humans that can certainly be used in agriculture. So I
Speaker 2: think the same in you know, in livestock, of using
Speaker 2: the same antibiotics that we use in livestock. You know,
Speaker 2: it's awesome, a major source of resistance in the US.
Speaker 2: It's something about eighty percent of all antibatics or used
Speaker 2: in livestock about twenty percent.
Speaker 1: This kind of ties into this idea of the evolution
Speaker 1: of fungus. So something like in the show O Field
Speaker 1: cord Aceps starts out in arthropods. I don't know of
Speaker 1: any mammals really that O Field cord aceps effects, and
Speaker 1: so it seems to make this jump from arthropods to humans.
Speaker 1: Do you think that it's realistic from an evolutionary point
Speaker 1: of view for a fungus to jump from an arthropod
Speaker 1: like an ant to a human without kind of any
Speaker 1: evolutionary steps in between.
Speaker 2: Without a million years in between. Unlikely? But there are certainly,
Speaker 2: you know, fungi that do exist that can affect humans.
Speaker 2: And so I would be more concerned about sort of
Speaker 2: the current some of the current agents that we have,
Speaker 2: certain agents, but the pathogens we have more so than
Speaker 2: some novel fungus coming out, although Canada orus is somewhat
Speaker 2: of a novel fungus that has emerged and caused major
Speaker 2: problems and hospitals and healthcare centers and in some cases
Speaker 2: with outbreaks.
Speaker 1: I see, So, how recent is this one? And you
Speaker 1: call it Candida.
Speaker 2: Orus kind of orus like your ear orus?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Uh, it's it's over the kind of the last decade
Speaker 2: where it's sort of emerged and and it's sort of
Speaker 2: niche is that it's it's anti fungal resistant, uh, and so,
Speaker 2: and it tends to there's been sort of sporadic cases
Speaker 2: that have happened and CDCs has tracked numerous outbreaks and
Speaker 2: sort of behaves kind of weird, you know, unusual for
Speaker 2: for a fun guy.
Speaker 1: In what ways is it unusual?
Speaker 2: It's more aggressive, and it's very hardy, where it's resistant
Speaker 2: not only to anti fungals but also to standard environmental
Speaker 2: cleaning and and things like that. Some of the cleaning
Speaker 2: agents that it's it's pretty robust against. And so it's
Speaker 2: something that has caused certainly problems. And this has sort
Speaker 2: of spread around the world from where when it was
Speaker 2: initially identified a little over a decade ago.
Speaker 1: And what kinds of problems does it cause for humans,
Speaker 1: like in terms of illness, Well.
Speaker 2: Well, normally particularly you know fun bunch I are really
Speaker 2: good at picking up basic people who have weakened immune systems,
Speaker 2: so people who are you compromised, and that can be
Speaker 2: due to a variety of reasons. It can be due
Speaker 2: to you know, cancer, chemotherapy, bone a mari of transplantation
Speaker 2: and things like that. Can also be to do HIV.
Speaker 2: But there's also a lot of new model antibodies that
Speaker 2: are used for in rheumatology and other treatments, and so
Speaker 2: those suppressed immune system in certain ways, and so that
Speaker 2: can predispose people to fungal infections. And so when you
Speaker 2: hear the TV commercials about if you've been exposed to
Speaker 2: perculosis or places where there may be fungal infections they're
Speaker 2: talking about, you know, those issues where it predisposes you
Speaker 2: to risk of infection. But you know, for the most part,
Speaker 2: most fungi kind of affect immuno compromise people for the
Speaker 2: for the most part. There are some exceptions, however, and
Speaker 2: a couple of those exceptions are things what we term
Speaker 2: is endemic micoses. They're sort of endemic to certain regions
Speaker 2: around the world, and they live in sort of the
Speaker 2: environment that they can form spores and you can inhale
Speaker 2: those in and you can get sick even if you're
Speaker 2: not immunocompromised. And so one of the more common ones
Speaker 2: is something called valley fever is coxidiorities micosis, and so
Speaker 2: that's in sort of the central Valley of California and
Speaker 2: in Arizona and kind of southwestern regions, but also up
Speaker 2: as far north as Yakama in Washington, and so that's
Speaker 2: sort of inhaled spores that can cause a pneumonia and
Speaker 2: can cause serious disease and a subset of people similarly
Speaker 2: in the Midwest, or something called histoplasmosis, which also is
Speaker 2: inhaled spore that you can be exposed to and can
Speaker 2: cause illness, serious illness and you know, kind of regular people.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because I so there is this computer game
Speaker 1: that predated this show, and it actually did feature inhaling
Speaker 1: spores as being in a root of infection, whereas now
Speaker 1: it seems like the show emphasizes like being bitten as
Speaker 1: a root of infection for fungus. Now, can you be like,
Speaker 1: can you get like a fungal infection through like an
Speaker 1: animal bite or scratch or something. Is that like a
Speaker 1: typical rooter? Is that more typically like a root for
Speaker 1: bacterial infection?
Speaker 2: Yeah, with with bite as usially it's a bacterial infection.
Speaker 2: You have a lot of bacteria that live in your mouth,
Speaker 2: and so that that's usually bacterial infection. But you can't
Speaker 2: have sort of you know, if you had a stick
Speaker 2: or something that that pokes your pokes to your skin,
Speaker 2: sort of a local localized inoculation where you kind of
Speaker 2: have have stuck something into your skin, splinters or wood
Speaker 2: or something like that. Sometimes you can see local, local action,
Speaker 2: but the majority of funel infections are inhaled and so
Speaker 2: where you're inhaling the scores and so that's the majority
Speaker 2: of infections that are current in humans with funel infections,
Speaker 2: that's usually the route of entry for most most fungus.
Speaker 1: So so far, we don't have to worry too much
Speaker 1: about a biting zombie apocalypse. More like a floating cloud
Speaker 1: that we should avoid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a windy day that that that's good. But you
Speaker 2: know your your immune system and you know we you're
Speaker 2: exposed to to fungus and spores in the environment every
Speaker 2: day when you're outside on a windy day, and so
Speaker 2: it's usually it's not a big deal. Your body's immune
Speaker 2: system takes care of it. You don't even know that
Speaker 2: you've been exposed. The exceptions would be if you're exposed
Speaker 2: to a lot all at once, or you're you're exposed
Speaker 2: to something to and your immune system is weakend for
Speaker 2: some reason.
Speaker 1: Well, that kind of reminds me of like the when
Speaker 1: house mold can actually cause problems for people. So mold
Speaker 1: is a type of fungus, uh, and so like something
Speaker 1: that may not be so much of a problem, and
Speaker 1: say a wide open field or a bog where you're
Speaker 1: not you know, kind of you're in the open space,
Speaker 1: like if it's in a home with not great ventilation,
Speaker 1: Is that where you see maybe more problems with like
Speaker 1: inhalation of spores.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some people will, particularly they can develop sort of
Speaker 2: an allergic response, and so it's a hyper you know,
Speaker 2: kind of hyper response to certain molds and an ascent allergy.
Speaker 2: And so with that that can trigger asthma. I can
Speaker 2: trigger other sort of respiray diseases that can serve as
Speaker 2: a trigger for that. And so certainly that that can
Speaker 2: be a case and is common likely with with a
Speaker 2: trigger for a lot of people's asthma.
Speaker 1: Well, we are going to take another quick break, but
Speaker 1: when we return, we're going to talk about the likelihood
Speaker 1: of a brain infection by a fungus. So you're back
Speaker 1: right before the break. We're talking about like allergic reactions,
Speaker 1: and that kind of reminds me of the one of
Speaker 1: the most the bane of my existence at least is
Speaker 1: the fungus that causes dandruff. Because not everyone like every
Speaker 1: the way I heard it, explain to me and correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong about this, is that there are
Speaker 1: some very common fung guy that are often found on humans,
Speaker 1: on people, and they often don't cause problems, but some
Speaker 1: people have more of a reaction to that, and that
Speaker 1: can cause anything from like dandruff to other adverse skin
Speaker 1: reactions like eczema. And I have had a lot of
Speaker 1: skin reactions or you know, sort of a scalp itchiness
Speaker 1: that I think I am particularly affected by this fungus.
Speaker 1: But so like it is that it do. People's reactions
Speaker 1: to fungus kind of very depending on you know, your
Speaker 1: immune system or just your physiology.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dandrift can be caused by a fungus called Malsesia,
Speaker 2: which is a common thing that lives on people's skin.
Speaker 2: You know, some people who lives there and it's happy
Speaker 2: and it's just sort of present and not a big deal.
Speaker 2: Some people will develop more of this, you know, more
Speaker 2: inflammatory hyper response to it and get dandrift and get
Speaker 2: subaric dermatitis and sort of other conditions that are a
Speaker 2: response to that. And so it's sort of the immune
Speaker 2: system's response to that fungi that can cause information.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm just unlucky that I can't be friends
Speaker 1: with this fungus that lives on my scalp. And I
Speaker 1: have to kill it with again a shampoo that has
Speaker 1: an anti fungal in it, which so I do feel
Speaker 1: a little bit protected in a fungal apocalypse situation because
Speaker 1: I would just use my anti fungalampoo on these.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if that's gonna kind of really work
Speaker 2: too well for you. Probably probably okay with preventing your
Speaker 2: zombie apocalypse as long.
Speaker 1: As it is a zombie apocalypse caused by really itchy
Speaker 1: zombies with suborg dermatitis. So, but that these are like
Speaker 1: a lot of the fungal infections that are most commonly
Speaker 1: known like athletes foot candida, you know, like suborg dermatitis,
Speaker 1: these are there are more topical infections. We did talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about inhaled spores that can cause you know,
Speaker 1: respiratory issues, but it seems like it's pretty rare for
Speaker 1: something like a fungal infection too. I mean, for for
Speaker 1: most types of infection, to reach the brain is quite
Speaker 1: rare because we have a blood brain barrier. The brain
Speaker 1: is quite well protected. But sometimes things do actually reach
Speaker 1: the brain. And there is I only know of one
Speaker 1: actually through your Twitter, which is cryptococcal meningitis. So can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about this form of infection.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so cryptococus, it's another yeastcryptoccus nea foremans is a
Speaker 2: common thing. Once again, it's in the environment. Everyone is
Speaker 2: sort of exposed to it and you live your life
Speaker 2: happily ever after, and you never know you've been exposed
Speaker 2: to it if you become immuno compromised, or once again,
Speaker 2: if you're exposed to a lot all at once, some
Speaker 2: people can get pretty sick, and so some people will
Speaker 2: do aut peumonia. But the most sort of pure complication
Speaker 2: is meningitis, where the fungus basically disseminates from the lungs
Speaker 2: through your bloodstream throughout the whole body, but also into
Speaker 2: your brain and can sort of lodge into the blood
Speaker 2: vessels of your brain. And there's a couple different theories
Speaker 2: of how it crosses the blood brain barier, but gets
Speaker 2: into the brain and surrounds the brain. And when it
Speaker 2: surrounds the brain, it it kind of plugs up the
Speaker 2: absorption of how your spinal fluid is absorbed, and so
Speaker 2: it kind of it's like a clugg sink where it
Speaker 2: sort of backs up, and so it creates a high
Speaker 2: pressure around your brain which sort of slowly crushes your brain,
Speaker 2: which sounds terrible, and it very much is terrible. And
Speaker 2: so it's a slow growing infection like a lot of
Speaker 2: bacterial menogitis, and so it's something that develops over days
Speaker 2: to weeks to months, and so people will eventually show
Speaker 2: up to healthcare just complain of this unrelenting headache, that
Speaker 2: this is terrible. And so it's a pretty unpleasant disease.
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, So, I mean, is this something
Speaker 1: that can be fatal?
Speaker 2: I certainly can be fatal. It's probably one of the
Speaker 2: more fatal fungal infections. It's also highly treatable, and so
Speaker 2: you know among our patients and our sort of clinical
Speaker 2: trials and things like that, about ninety percent of people
Speaker 2: can can survive and do well long term. But you know,
Speaker 2: without that sort of with expert care and sort of
Speaker 2: a fair number of resources and more routine care, fatality
Speaker 2: rates can be forty percent or higher.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's I think it is. It's interesting
Speaker 1: that we actually do have like the quite I guess,
Speaker 1: quite frightening diseases like brain infection caused by fungus, But
Speaker 1: then we have treatments for it, hopefully, treatments that people
Speaker 1: can have access to I know that that can be
Speaker 1: a problem of course, getting people access to these treatments.
Speaker 1: I think that is something that I find interesting in
Speaker 1: terms of these more apocalyptic movies, the idea that when
Speaker 1: we're faced with something we haven't seen before, that we
Speaker 1: have no tools at our disposal, whereas well, I mean,
Speaker 1: what we've seen with like the coronavirus pandemic. Yes, we
Speaker 1: didn't have a treatment at the beginning, but we developed
Speaker 1: the treatment. And the idea that somehow society you would
Speaker 1: break down before we even could begin to start any
Speaker 1: kind of intervention, to me is not super likely. I mean,
Speaker 1: what what do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Fortunately society did not break down. It wasn't wasn't
Speaker 2: quite obvious there for a while. But no, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I think I think that you can see that with
Speaker 2: ingenuity and resources, and I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: smart people around the world that can work towards solving
Speaker 2: a problem. And so oftentimes it's an issue of priority, prioritization,
Speaker 2: and in some cases it's about you know, in our system,
Speaker 2: it's about the commercial market, and so can you make
Speaker 2: you know, can a pharmaceutical you know, company make money
Speaker 2: off of a treatment? And so for a lot of
Speaker 2: you know, antibiotics and anti fungals. There's not a huge
Speaker 2: incentive for you know, you can't make a huge amount
Speaker 2: of money off of an antibotic you take for two weeks,
Speaker 2: you know, versus a medicine you take for the rest
Speaker 2: of your life. You know, you can make a ton
Speaker 2: of money off of or cancer therapy where you're on
Speaker 2: it for several weeks or months. And so there has
Speaker 2: been sort of a disincentive and sort of sort of disinvestments.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if that's a word, but under we'll say,
Speaker 2: an underinvestment and new sort of anti microbial agents, both
Speaker 2: for bacteria as well as for fungi and so so
Speaker 2: cryptic coccus, for instance, is considered sort of a neglected
Speaker 2: uh neglected disease by the FDA, and so there's some
Speaker 2: incentives and things that people can and try to you know,
Speaker 2: bring a new drug to market, and they have sort
Speaker 2: of incentives to do so. But still it's a big
Speaker 2: it's a big reach. And so for you know, some
Speaker 2: diseases as well, we have treatments for them, you know,
Speaker 2: like valley fever that's in California with coxy there are
Speaker 2: you know, could you have better treatments. And then so
Speaker 2: I think we still need better treatments for a lot
Speaker 2: of the fungi just because the treatments are pretty toxic
Speaker 2: that we have sometimes.
Speaker 1: So what you're saying is that medical care should be
Speaker 1: based on science and human health rather than profits, which
Speaker 1: I think is strange and interesting.
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's you know, I think sometimes can you
Speaker 2: can you how do you align? The question is really,
Speaker 2: you know, we love a capital society, and so how
Speaker 2: can you align profit? Motive to us is for innovation
Speaker 2: and so you know, we can have a new headache drug,
Speaker 2: or we can have a new erectile dysfunction drug, but
Speaker 2: that's really not like probably the most really impactful thing
Speaker 2: for all of human health and existence, even though you
Speaker 2: can make a lot of money off of it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so and so the question is how, yeah, how
Speaker 2: do you kind of simulate a for profit, you know,
Speaker 2: pharma system to also consider other things which are in
Speaker 2: the public good.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe make them watch the Last of Us
Speaker 1: and scare them and tell them, yes, this could definitely
Speaker 1: happen if we don't start developing new anti fungals.
Speaker 2: I'll try that suggestion. That not sure that will work tough,
Speaker 2: but that there are some things in the pipeline and
Speaker 2: there are a lot of this goes back to basic
Speaker 2: science and stuff of like people working in tubes and
Speaker 2: sort of you know, in mouse models and sort of
Speaker 2: all the sort of basic science stuff to identify new
Speaker 2: targets and so those targets can be moved forward and
Speaker 2: look at what if you block that target. And so
Speaker 2: it is kind of a long road of taking you know,
Speaker 2: a concept to them, like into a drug trial and
Speaker 2: humans is a long long road that can take you know,
Speaker 2: decades or more sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we yeah, it is. It is something that
Speaker 1: we really have to incentive. I hate the word incentivized,
Speaker 1: but yes, incentivize, push, push towards doing well before we go.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that you want I would like people
Speaker 1: to know about fungus or the relationship between fungus or
Speaker 1: and human health, or or why you're interested in mycology?
Speaker 2: Well, I think you know FUNCHI are diverse, you know organisms,
Speaker 2: and so one of the more common ones that that
Speaker 2: people might be familiar with is sacrimice uh servecea, which
Speaker 2: is Brewers, yes, which is used and you don't have
Speaker 2: to make wine to make you know, flour and baking,
Speaker 2: and so there are good things, and there's good properties
Speaker 2: that have been developed with with some yeast. Most of
Speaker 2: these live in the environment and don't cause any human disease,
Speaker 2: and they're part of thor of the natural process of decaying,
Speaker 2: you know, dead and dyeing plant matter, and I guess
Speaker 2: animal matter as well. But there are a handful that
Speaker 2: certainly can cause serious disease, and they can be highly fatal,
Speaker 2: and we certainly do need more better therapies. But yeah,
Speaker 2: people are working on those, but it's kind of a
Speaker 2: slow closet log often, and so you know, I'm I
Speaker 2: don't know, I guess halfway through my career, but I
Speaker 2: still consider myself a buddy mycologist and still learning along
Speaker 2: the way of all the interesting things that these organisms
Speaker 2: can do and how best we can help people with
Speaker 2: these impressions.
Speaker 1: So don't judge a fungus by its cap is sort
Speaker 1: of the lesson here, or should we sometimes? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've never picked a wild mushroom and tried to eat
Speaker 1: it because I cannot judge a motion by its cap
Speaker 1: responsibly without maybe poisoning myself.
Speaker 2: I think that's probably good analogis. Some can be wonderful
Speaker 2: and some will field.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Professor
Speaker 1: David Wilware, and for answering my questions.
Speaker 2: That's it's pleasure to be here. Thank you for the
Speaker 2: invit