Dear Colleagues,

Fungi can cause devastating infections, ranging from site-threating keratitis to life-threatening invasive disease. As the immunosuppressed population continues to rise, e.g., in the setting of organ transplantation or HIV/AIDs, so too will the clinical and economic burden of these infections. The current repertoire of antifungals is unfortunately limited in both scope and effectiveness, as highlighted by the unacceptably high mortalities rates of systemic mycoses overall (25%–90%) and compounded by the emergence of drug resistant Aspergillus and Candida infections. The need for novel and better antifungals is therefore obvious, but their development faces numerous challenges. For example, fungi are eukaryotes, so drugs that inhibit their growth are often toxic to the host. Moreover, the presence of efflux mechanisms in the fungal cell renders many compounds, though theoretically promising, practically ineffective. Thus, improved techniques for identifying and optimizing novel drugs, ensuring their safety, and testing their feasibility in infection models are critical to combat fungal disease.

The aim of this Special Issue is to centralize ideas and methods that span the entire spectrum of antifungal research. This includes primary or review articles covering the following topics: (1) compound discovery (natural product isolation, library screening); (2) drug optimization (modeling, synthetic chemistry); (3) target deconvolution (i.e., elucidating drug mechanisms); (4) pharmacokinetics and toxicity testing; and (5) treatment studies (cell culture or animal infection models). We are also interested in novel forward or reverse genetic approaches (e.g., CRISPR libraries) that allow researchers to identify putative drug targets. Through this issue, we hope researchers specializing in one facet of antifungal development will become aware of techniques used in another and, as a consequence, expand their own research program or seek collaborations towards that end. By sharing ideas and resources, we hope to expedite antifungal development and improve outcomes in these underserved patients.

We hope you will contribute!

Dr. Kevin K. Fuller
Guest Editor

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