Mycologist John Taylor of the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that a close biochemical relationship between fungi and animals may explain why fungal infections are typically so resistant to treatment, and why it has proven rather difficult to develop drugs that kill fungi without damaging their human or other animal hosts. Hundreds of fungal genomes have been sequenced, including those of several medically important species. If you are a researcher working to develop new antifungal drugs, how could you make use of this growing genetic understanding? Using Internet resources, can you find examples of antifungal drugs that exploit biochemical differences between animals and fungi?
