SINGAPORE: Scientists from the Agency for Science Technology And Research (A*STAR) have solved a century-old mystery in yeast infections.
They constructed stable strains of Candida albicans, the most prevalent human fungal pathogen and a major cause of hospital acquired infection.
A*STAR said on Friday that their discovery will help pave the way to develop drugs that effectively target and treat such infections.
Currently, the choice of drugs for this pathogen is limited.
Drugs resistance has also emerged worldwide, posing a great challenge to medicine.
The A*STAR scientists have shown that Candida albicans, long thought of as always having two copies of each chromosome and no sexual reproduction in its life, can and does exist as a sexually reproducing cell carrying only one copy of its genome.
The discovery fills a long missing gap in the life cycle of the pathogen and greatly advances the understanding of how it generates genetic variations.
The tools developed will help speed up the analyses of gene function and might speed up efforts to cure Candida infections.
- CNA/fa
A*STAR scientists solve century-old mystery in yeast infections
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A*STAR scientists solve century-old mystery in yeast infections
