Nooshin KianvashRad

University of North Carolina, USA

Title: Native Nanostructure Surface from the Wings of Tibicens spp. Cicada sensitized yeast to antifungal drugs

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Biography

Nooshin KianvashRad is a PhD student and graduate research assistance at Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering(JSNN) at the University of North Carolina Greensboro with over 10 years of post-graduate experience in Radiology Technology, in Public and Private Health Centre, and a strong background in Nano-medicine.  Her research Interest includes diagnosis and treatment of Cancers, Drug Delivery, Cancer treatment by changing cell cycling.

Abstract

Candida albicans is an opportunistic fungal pathogen that affects immunocompromised patients and causes superficial to systemic infections. Under varied environment conditions, this pathogen exhibits a variety of reactions that result in the growth of a virulence factor, such as biofilm formation. The diagnosis of fungal infections is challenging due to the lack of sensitive and rapid diagnostic tools and the failure of antibiotic treatment, which leads to the persistence of infection. Factors such as immunosuppression after implantation, increased utilization of prosthetic devices, as well as catheters in combination with antibiotics, prolonged chemotherapy, and HIV infection, lead to enhanced mortality, and morbidity in immunocompromised patients caused by Candida albicans. These conditions often limit the ability to use antifungals due to their toxicity, impermeability, and side effects, leading to an increasing resistance of Candida albicans to current antifungal drugs. This existing resistance enhances the priority of developing new antifungal drugs or therapies. So, microbial rupture upon interaction with nanostructure surfaces has gained a lot of interest. Our lab showed that this interaction influences the major transcriptional changes resulting in a set of characteristic metabolic and physiological responses in Candida albicans, such as adhesion, ergosterol biosynthesis, and altered expression of DNA damage response genes. The ergosterol biosynthesis pathway is the target of several classes of antifungal drug. The interaction of between Candida albicans and the nanostructure surfaces resulted in the reduction of cellular ergosterol resulting in a sensitivity to antifungal drugs. These findings provide a potential molecular approach to designing efficient antimicrobial surfaces to control biofilm formation in immunocompromised patients and extend the use of current antifungal drug classes. The goal of our research is to identify the genetic response of the fungal pathogen, Candida albicans, to mechanical stimuli therapy and determine how such a response allows this pathogen to adapt, followed by forming a biofilm on different substrates.