Lizzie Hunsaker of the Franz lab has discovered that modulating copper levels in the growth environment of Candida albicans reduces tolerance of this pathogen to widely prescribed azole antifungal drugs. Their results suggest that, even though these drugs are capable of coordinating transition metal centers, the observed copper-potentiated activity is not due to the formation of a copper complex. Instead, the data point to a broader relationship between Cu homeostasis and azole antifungals, a relationship that the lab continues to explore. Read more about this exciting discovery in the recent Dalton Transactions paper here.
Chemistry
