Hosted by the Biochemistry and Nutrition department. 

Target Audience

Des Moines University faculty, staff, and students.

Learning Objectives

1. Understand the role of the C. albicans quorum sensing molecule farnesol in regulation of fungal morphology.
2. Know how farnesol affects the gene regulatory networks controlling fungal morphogenesis.
3. Compare and contrast the effects of farnesol in vivo and in vitro on pathogenesis and virulence.
4. Learn how farnesol affects host innate immune cells and the consequences that might have for disseminated Candida infections.

Speaker

Audrey Atkin, PhD
Associate Professor, School of Biological Science, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Biography

Dr. Audrey Atkin completed her PhD at the University of Alberta in Genetics. She is currently working to study the polymorphic commensal fungus Candida albicans, which causes life-threatening disease during bloodstream infections. She has studied its ability to interconvert between different morphological forms is important for pathogenicity. The morphological transitions are regulated, in part, by farnesol. Farnesol is a quorum sensing molecule synthesized by C. albicans that blocks the conversion of yeast to hyphae or pseudohyphae in response to most, if not all, of the chemical and environmental morphogenesis inducers. While they initially thought that farnesol might attenuate C. albicans virulence in systematic C. albicans infections, it has been discovered that farnesol acts as a virulence factor.