May 14, 2025 • 37 mins
Please enjoy one of my favorite episodes, especially with the new season of that fungus zombie show!
In this interview with infectious diseases expert Professor David Boulware, we discuss the real impact ophiocordyceps has on ants, and whether we humans should be concerned.
Guest: Professor David Boulware
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Mini Parasites Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
and today on the show The Last of Us more
like the Best Fungus, We're talking about O Field Cordyceps
and other fungi as we explore the possibilities of a
fungal infection taking control of the brain. Could there be
(00:30):
a fungal zombie apocalypse such as is depicted in the
Last of Us? Is ofield cord Aceps real and how
does it function in nature? How much do humans need
to fear the fungus? Discover this and more as we
answer the age old question can ants contemplate the horrors
of their existence? Joining me to help answer these questions
(00:52):
is Infectious Diseases doctor and self described budding mycologist, Professor
David Bulwer. Welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Hey, it's great to be here. Thank you for the invite.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I really like how you call yourself a budding mycologist.
Don't think I missed that little fungus pun.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Oh, it's it is. I'm still budding. I think there's
a lot to learn. I think that's that's really what
the pun is about there's a lot to learn about fungus,
and so I'm still learning along the way.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I mean absolutely, I am also learning about fungus. I'm
by no means a fungal expert. I do know specifically
about Ofio cordyceps because of how famous it is in
terms of its effects on ants. But fungus is it
is such a I mean, first of all, it's an
incredibly diverse group of organisms. So a you have just
(01:40):
by knowing one type of fungus. It's not like you
know the entire fungal uh you know group. It's They're
very diverse, and they're all they all function in very
weird in different ways. I don't know how anyone can
ever have a total mastery over fungus.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, I certainly a talent. Unfortunately, the majority of you know,
fungus doesn't cause disease in humans. There's you know, hundreds
and millions of species of fungi which are distinct from
plants and distinct from animals in their own kingdom, but
only handful of them actually cause pathologic disease in humans.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Right, Yeah, I think that is really important to note.
It's not as if they are all out to get us.
It's kind of like when people think of bats as
being all these blood sucking, bloodthirsty little creatures, and it's
like the majority most bat species are either nectivorous, frugivorous,
(02:35):
or insectivorous. There's only one or two species that actually
drink blood, and so they get this like creepy bad rap,
But most of them are not what people think. And
it's the same thing with fungus. They most fungus is good,
I mean or neutral. It's not something we have to
worry about. So in the very popular TV so it
(03:00):
actually came from a video game called The Last of Us.
It depicts a pandemic zombie apocalypse. The fungus in the show,
a species of ophiocort Aceps contaminated food at a cereal
factory I think in Jakarta and then spread globally when
people ate the contaminated food. This is all fictional, don't panic.
(03:22):
People started showing signs of aggression, biting or killing others.
There's a mycologist in a show that determined it was
ofio coort Aceps, which typically infects arthropods. So arthropods are
invertebrates like insects, and spiders, and then it takes control
of their behavior of their bodies. But somehow, in this
(03:44):
fictional world, the o Fio cord Aceps jumps to humans,
infects humans, takes over their brains, and drives people to
violently kill or bite other people, thus infecting them, you know,
the classic zombie trope and the infect kind of a
twist on that those that the infected humans slowly become
(04:05):
subsumed by this fungus, becoming coded and fun It's kind
of funny because when I look at the visuals of
the show, kind of looks like not just one species
of fungus, it looks like all sorts of different species covering.
I mean, for the visual impact, I think it is cool,
if not a little bit unrealistic. But yeah, it's just
that their whole bodies get covered in this fungus and
(04:27):
then they spread it through biting people or like I guess,
kind of mouth to mouth fillament transmission, which is an
interesting twist on it. Have you have you seen the
show at all? Doctors?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, and really I have not seen the show. When
it came out, I was I was out of the country,
and I have not gone back to track of town
and lash it. So, but I've heard of a lot
about it, so it seems very entertaining. You know, maybe
not factually accurate, but you know that's it's entertainment value.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah exactly. I mean I could still enjoy it, even
though throughout the first episode I kept leaning over to
my husband and commenting like, no, that doesn't make sense. Now,
that doesn't make sense, but you know it's I still
really like that they incorporate some actual, like some reference
to an actual fungus. That's that's neat. I think it
(05:17):
makes people curious about that kind of thing and then
want to find out more about it, which is what
we are going to try to do. So Ofio Cortaceps
is a real genus of fungus and a fascinating one
that we've talked about on the show before, but it
is not quite as the HBO show depicts it. So
(05:37):
the most famous species of Opiod Cordyceps is Ofio Cortaceps unilateralists.
It is also called the zombie ant fungus, and it
is indeed exceedingly spooky. It is found in tropical forests
all over the world and infects ants of a specific
species Campanodas leonardi. While they can infect other species of ants,
(05:59):
the fungus are most optimized for this one. So, while
foraging on the forest floor, an ant will pick up
spores like little pieces of lint on its body, and
the spore uses enzymes to break down the ants exoskeleton
and it works its way into the ant's body, which
is a kind of exfoliation that you definitely don't want
(06:22):
in this situation. These spores will develop inside the ant's
body into fungal growths and infect the ants soft tissues,
but not necessarily its brain. That's something of a misconception.
While it does seem to alter the ant's central nervous system,
it doesn't require the fungus to actually be growing inside
(06:44):
of its brain. It's infiltrating all of the ants soft tissues. Also,
it can grow like in its head, but it's not
necessarily a physical presence in the brain that is causing
the ants behavior to be modified. It as these compounds
that the fungus is releasing. So some of the behavioral
modifications that will happen is that the ants will convulse
(07:08):
and fall from the tree where usually their nest is,
onto the forest floor. Then the ants will climb up
a plant stem. They will grip onto the underside of
the leaf. Usually there's like a vein on the underside
of the leaf that they clamp down on with its mandibles,
specifically on the north side of the plant, which is interesting.
(07:30):
There's some speculation that it optimizes where it grips for
moisture levels and temperature being ideal for the fungus. And
it will stay there until the fungus overcomes the ant
and kind of grows into this. You know, it looks
very creepy, this sort of ant covered in fungus gripped
(07:51):
onto this leaf. The ofio Cordyceps universalis will grow its
hyphe into the ant. And Hyphae are these branching, vein
like structures of a fungus. They're also known as filaments,
which allows the fungus to expand and transport nutrients. In
a group of hyphae is called a micellium. The ant
(08:15):
becomes overwhelmed by the micellium, which also roots the ant
to the leaf, and then finally, after around four to
ten days, a fruiting body or bodies will grow from
the ant, which looks like a little stem with a
bulb on top and then that will distribute the spores. So, uh,
while this fungus is called the zombie ant fungus. Once
(08:37):
the ant is dead, it's just dead. It's not gonna
reanimate this this dead ant. So do we so, doctor will,
where do we see any kind of fungus like this
in humans that takes like takes over our brains and
our bodies and controls us in this way?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Oh exactly. I mean there are certain types of fungus
that can cause infections of the brain, and they can
alter people's behavior certainly, but usually they just make people
really really sick.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. And one thing that's interesting
to me is that this is definitely a scary thing
that is real, right, this is a real fungus. But
the only animals it seems like that it seems to
have this kind of specific control over are arthropods insects,
(09:34):
And so is it when we see something that impacts
a an arthropod or an insect or a spider, Like,
how typical is it for diseases or something that is
like zoonotic to originate from an insect versus something that
is closer to us on the evolutionary tree.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, so a lot of things, a lot of fun
Fungus can affect cold blooded animals and cold blooded you know, insects,
et cetera. And one of the theories behind why are
mammals warm blooded is that that the temperature difference protects
us against bungle diseases. And so that's sort of one
of the hypotheses and theories of why sort of mammals
(10:19):
sort of escaped after sort of you know, sort of
the great sort of the dinosaurs and sort of you know,
the meteorites sort of striking the earth and sort of
causing sort of dust clouds and all the plants dying
off with that. Then fungus is sort of a big
part of decaying plant matter, and so breaking down plants
(10:40):
and sort of that process of decay is what fungi
normally do in the environment. And so one of the
theories of why then mammals sort of exploded and sort
of took off after that is the temperature difference. Being
warm blooded protects us from fungus because most fungus does
not grow very well at ninety eight degrees temperature.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
That's really interesting, I mean, it kind of makes sense too.
Then that when we see this specific ant controlling behavior
or something like OFEO. Cortyceps, it actually directs the ant
to a very specific part of the forest floor. It's
not content to just infect the ant wherever it is
and the ant, you know, sprouts the fruiting body. It
(11:22):
has evolved to kind of modulate the ant's behavior in
such a way that the ant goes to like the
underside of a leaf somewhere, whether there's the right amount
of humidity, the right temperature, because really it wants kind
of a ideal environment for itself. So to somehow be
able to jump to a human and infect a human,
(11:42):
it would require that it overcome this need for this
very specific temperature range. And it seems that seems quite
difficult to make such a leap.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
It to us, and so most most fungus doesn't do that.
But you know, one of the concerns with global warming
is that the ambient temperature and the environment humans and
many places of the globe is coming closer and closer together.
Such things that can live in the environment quite happily,
there may be a selection pressure where they can jump
to humans. And so at present, I'm in Minnesota, there's
(12:15):
a big difference between ancient temperature outside and the environment
and what it is in the body. But in other
places around the world you've got high temperatures and so
that that bearer may be less.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean we have seen that in
animals where the change in climate will change the situation
that that animal has with something like a bacteria from
being basically they can sort of coexist to it overwhelming
the animal, like the syga antelope, which was able to
(12:48):
co exist with a bacteria that would live it. They're
these so sayga antelope or these really interesting animals. They
have these huge proboscises. It looks like the beginnings of
an elephant trun but then it just kind of stops.
And you know these these proboscises are they breathe in
a lot of air and they kind of like cool
(13:09):
down the air or warm up the air, depending on
like their needs. It's like a portable air conditioners slash
heater unit. And so in their noses like they would
there's often like bacteria bacteria well like moist warm areas,
but they were their immune systems are able to fight
(13:29):
off the bacteria in their nose when it's at a
certain level, but when it's above a certain level, they
can no longer fight it off. And the temperature change.
The temperature just being a little bit warmer made conditions
a little bit better for this bacteria. And so you
had whole herds of siga antelope just dropping dead mysteriously
like it was very, very creepy because you'd have this
(13:50):
entire herd of antelope just dead on the ground and
finding out that it's because well, the temperature is a
little higher, so the bacteria was able to thrive a
little that are it is creepy and it is a
little bit spooky. This idea that fungus uh, you know,
if it is driven a little bit towards being able
(14:10):
to exist in a warmer environment, then it would potentially
be more of a risk to humans.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I very mentioned so that that's a little bit of
a concern. And and so some of the you know,
environmental sort of kind of explosion with back A fungus
called a Canada Orius in particular is one of those
that's more thermotolerant. And so one of the theories of
why that's been selected out and is due to sort
(14:38):
of the increased temperatures, as well as sort of fundicide
use a sort of in the environment and agriculture of
anti fungal agents us used to protect crops.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
That's yeah, I mean, that's kind of reminds me of
the we have a lot of concerns about the overuse
of antibacterials and antibiotics. But yeah, the overuse of anti fungals,
I guess I that that concern I don't hear about
too much. But how big of a concern do you
think that is?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Well, there's a lot of different So for plants, if
you think about your tomato plant, like, you can get
sort of various sort of diseases and a lot of
those are mold and funguses basically that they can affect
the plants. And so in agriculture, you know, molds are
are big deal. Molds are a type of fungus, and
so there are a number of different you know, anti
fungal properties. You know, compounds are used for agriculture, and
(15:33):
so a lot of those are not used in humans,
but but some of them actually are. They're in the
same class that we use in humans. And so that
that alarms me a little bit because we're starting to
see more and more anti fungal resistance, and so with that,
I would say, don't use compounds that are using humans
in agriculture. But that's all.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Right, I'll stop doing that. Well, uh so we're going
to take a quick break, but when we get we
will be talking about some of the claims that the
HBO show makes about fungus and using that kind of
as a jumping off point to talk more about the
impacts that fungi can have on human health. So we
(16:17):
are back, and I am very lucky to be joined
by Professor David Bulware, who is an infectious diseases doctor
with an acute awareness of fungus and the risks of fungus.
And I think that whenever people watch a show like
The Last of Us, I mean, people know it's fiction,
(16:39):
people know it's science fiction, but it is it brings
up these ideas of like of a fungal pandemic, and
so sometimes the show will say things like in the
beginning of the show, it talked about one of the
dangers of this this sort of outbreak of this fungus
is that they have no treatments for fungal infections. Now,
(17:03):
before the break, we just talked about the potential over
use of anti fungals. So already that's not quite accurate, right, Like,
it's not that we don't have anything that treats fungus.
You can pick it up off the shelf of pharmacy.
You can get you know, cream for athletes foot, which
is a type of anti fungal. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Correct? There are a number of anti fungal proper compounds
and treatments, summer creams, ointment that are topical, and there's
a handful of them that they're used you know, orally
or intravenously, but there's not that many real different therapies
we have. And so there's maybe I don't know a
dozen or so in total of different anti fungal compounds
(17:47):
that we use in humans, and it's pretty it's a
pretty limited scope.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
So maybe the nuance that is sort of lost in
the you know, zombie Apocalypse show is that yes, we
do have treatments for a fungus, but maybe they're not
as specified or as numerous as the treatments we say
have for viral infections or bacterial infections.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
But we don't have that many treatments for viral infections.
But we do have a lot of antabatics, and so
with you know, anti fungal you know medicines. There's sort
of three or four classes of anti fungal medicines. Some
of them are pretty toxic, you know, some of them
are less toxic. But you know, we do see resistance
and we see some you know, some fungi that could
(18:31):
be resistant to all three classes of anti fungals.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I see, and maybe we're not making that situation better
if we over use anti fungals in agriculture.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Well it's probably not super helpful, but I mean there
are different anti fungal things that are not used in
humans that can certainly be used in agriculture. So I
think the same in you know, in livestock, of using
the same antibiotics that we use in livestock. You know,
it's awesome, a major source of resistance in the US.
It's something about eighty percent of all antibatics or used
(19:06):
in livestock about twenty percent.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
This kind of ties into this idea of the evolution
of fungus. So something like in the show O Field
cord Aceps starts out in arthropods. I don't know of
any mammals really that O Field cord aceps effects, and
(19:28):
so it seems to make this jump from arthropods to humans.
Do you think that it's realistic from an evolutionary point
of view for a fungus to jump from an arthropod
like an ant to a human without kind of any
evolutionary steps in between.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Without a million years in between. Unlikely? But there are certainly,
you know, fungi that do exist that can affect humans.
And so I would be more concerned about sort of
the current some of the current agents that we have,
certain agents, but the pathogens we have more so than
some novel fungus coming out, although Canada orus is somewhat
(20:08):
of a novel fungus that has emerged and caused major
problems and hospitals and healthcare centers and in some cases
with outbreaks.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I see, So, how recent is this one? And you
call it Candida.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Orus kind of orus like your ear orus?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Uh, it's it's over the kind of the last decade
where it's sort of emerged and and it's sort of
niche is that it's it's anti fungal resistant, uh, and so,
and it tends to there's been sort of sporadic cases
that have happened and CDCs has tracked numerous outbreaks and
sort of behaves kind of weird, you know, unusual for
for a fun guy.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
In what ways is it unusual?
Speaker 2 (20:47):
It's more aggressive, and it's very hardy, where it's resistant
not only to anti fungals but also to standard environmental
cleaning and and things like that. Some of the cleaning
agents that it's it's pretty robust against. And so it's
something that has caused certainly problems. And this has sort
of spread around the world from where when it was
initially identified a little over a decade ago.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
And what kinds of problems does it cause for humans,
like in terms of illness, Well.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Well, normally particularly you know fun bunch I are really
good at picking up basic people who have weakened immune systems,
so people who are you compromised, and that can be
due to a variety of reasons. It can be due
to you know, cancer, chemotherapy, bone a mari of transplantation
and things like that. Can also be to do HIV.
(21:36):
But there's also a lot of new model antibodies that
are used for in rheumatology and other treatments, and so
those suppressed immune system in certain ways, and so that
can predispose people to fungal infections. And so when you
hear the TV commercials about if you've been exposed to
perculosis or places where there may be fungal infections they're
talking about, you know, those issues where it predisposes you
(21:58):
to risk of infection. But you know, for the most part,
most fungi kind of affect immuno compromise people for the
for the most part. There are some exceptions, however, and
a couple of those exceptions are things what we term
is endemic micoses. They're sort of endemic to certain regions
around the world, and they live in sort of the
(22:19):
environment that they can form spores and you can inhale
those in and you can get sick even if you're
not immunocompromised. And so one of the more common ones
is something called valley fever is coxidiorities micosis, and so
that's in sort of the central Valley of California and
in Arizona and kind of southwestern regions, but also up
(22:40):
as far north as Yakama in Washington, and so that's
sort of inhaled spores that can cause a pneumonia and
can cause serious disease and a subset of people similarly
in the Midwest, or something called histoplasmosis, which also is
inhaled spore that you can be exposed to and can
cause illness, serious illness and you know, kind of regular people.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
That's interesting because I so there is this computer game
that predated this show, and it actually did feature inhaling
spores as being in a root of infection, whereas now
it seems like the show emphasizes like being bitten as
a root of infection for fungus. Now, can you be like,
(23:25):
can you get like a fungal infection through like an
animal bite or scratch or something. Is that like a
typical rooter? Is that more typically like a root for
bacterial infection?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, with with bite as usially it's a bacterial infection.
You have a lot of bacteria that live in your mouth,
and so that that's usually bacterial infection. But you can't
have sort of you know, if you had a stick
or something that that pokes your pokes to your skin,
sort of a local localized inoculation where you kind of
have have stuck something into your skin, splinters or wood
(23:56):
or something like that. Sometimes you can see local, local action,
but the majority of funel infections are inhaled and so
where you're inhaling the scores and so that's the majority
of infections that are current in humans with funel infections,
that's usually the route of entry for most most fungus.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So so far, we don't have to worry too much
about a biting zombie apocalypse. More like a floating cloud
that we should avoid.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, a windy day that that that's good. But you
know your your immune system and you know we you're
exposed to to fungus and spores in the environment every
day when you're outside on a windy day, and so
it's usually it's not a big deal. Your body's immune
system takes care of it. You don't even know that
you've been exposed. The exceptions would be if you're exposed
to a lot all at once, or you're you're exposed
(24:47):
to something to and your immune system is weakend for
some reason.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Well, that kind of reminds me of like the when
house mold can actually cause problems for people. So mold
is a type of fungus, uh, and so like something
that may not be so much of a problem, and
say a wide open field or a bog where you're
not you know, kind of you're in the open space,
like if it's in a home with not great ventilation,
(25:15):
Is that where you see maybe more problems with like
inhalation of spores.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah, some people will, particularly they can develop sort of
an allergic response, and so it's a hyper you know,
kind of hyper response to certain molds and an ascent allergy.
And so with that that can trigger asthma. I can
trigger other sort of respiray diseases that can serve as
a trigger for that. And so certainly that that can
(25:41):
be a case and is common likely with with a
trigger for a lot of people's asthma.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Well, we are going to take another quick break, but
when we return, we're going to talk about the likelihood
of a brain infection by a fungus. So you're back
right before the break. We're talking about like allergic reactions,
and that kind of reminds me of the one of
the most the bane of my existence at least is
(26:11):
the fungus that causes dandruff. Because not everyone like every
the way I heard it, explain to me and correct
me if I'm wrong about this, is that there are
some very common fung guy that are often found on humans,
on people, and they often don't cause problems, but some
(26:31):
people have more of a reaction to that, and that
can cause anything from like dandruff to other adverse skin
reactions like eczema. And I have had a lot of
skin reactions or you know, sort of a scalp itchiness
that I think I am particularly affected by this fungus.
(26:54):
But so like it is that it do. People's reactions
to fungus kind of very depending on you know, your
immune system or just your physiology.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, dandrift can be caused by a fungus called Malsesia,
which is a common thing that lives on people's skin.
You know, some people who lives there and it's happy
and it's just sort of present and not a big deal.
Some people will develop more of this, you know, more
inflammatory hyper response to it and get dandrift and get
subaric dermatitis and sort of other conditions that are a
(27:28):
response to that. And so it's sort of the immune
system's response to that fungi that can cause information.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, so I'm just unlucky that I can't be friends
with this fungus that lives on my scalp. And I
have to kill it with again a shampoo that has
an anti fungal in it, which so I do feel
a little bit protected in a fungal apocalypse situation because
I would just use my anti fungalampoo on these.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I'm not sure if that's gonna kind of really work
too well for you. Probably probably okay with preventing your
zombie apocalypse as long.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
As it is a zombie apocalypse caused by really itchy
zombies with suborg dermatitis. So, but that these are like
a lot of the fungal infections that are most commonly
known like athletes foot candida, you know, like suborg dermatitis,
(28:31):
these are there are more topical infections. We did talk
a little bit about inhaled spores that can cause you know,
respiratory issues, but it seems like it's pretty rare for
something like a fungal infection too. I mean, for for
most types of infection, to reach the brain is quite
(28:52):
rare because we have a blood brain barrier. The brain
is quite well protected. But sometimes things do actually reach
the brain. And there is I only know of one
actually through your Twitter, which is cryptococcal meningitis. So can
(29:12):
you talk a little bit about this form of infection.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, so cryptococus, it's another yeastcryptoccus nea foremans is a
common thing. Once again, it's in the environment. Everyone is
sort of exposed to it and you live your life
happily ever after, and you never know you've been exposed
to it if you become immuno compromised, or once again,
if you're exposed to a lot all at once, some
people can get pretty sick, and so some people will
(29:37):
do aut peumonia. But the most sort of pure complication
is meningitis, where the fungus basically disseminates from the lungs
through your bloodstream throughout the whole body, but also into
your brain and can sort of lodge into the blood
vessels of your brain. And there's a couple different theories
of how it crosses the blood brain barier, but gets
into the brain and surrounds the brain. And when it
(29:59):
surrounds the brain, it it kind of plugs up the
absorption of how your spinal fluid is absorbed, and so
it kind of it's like a clugg sink where it
sort of backs up, and so it creates a high
pressure around your brain which sort of slowly crushes your brain,
which sounds terrible, and it very much is terrible. And
so it's a slow growing infection like a lot of
(30:21):
bacterial menogitis, and so it's something that develops over days
to weeks to months, and so people will eventually show
up to healthcare just complain of this unrelenting headache, that
this is terrible. And so it's a pretty unpleasant disease.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
I would say, yeah, So, I mean, is this something
that can be fatal?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I certainly can be fatal. It's probably one of the
more fatal fungal infections. It's also highly treatable, and so
you know among our patients and our sort of clinical
trials and things like that, about ninety percent of people
can can survive and do well long term. But you know,
without that sort of with expert care and sort of
a fair number of resources and more routine care, fatality
(31:06):
rates can be forty percent or higher.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, I mean, that's I think it is. It's interesting
that we actually do have like the quite I guess,
quite frightening diseases like brain infection caused by fungus, But
then we have treatments for it, hopefully, treatments that people
can have access to I know that that can be
(31:31):
a problem of course, getting people access to these treatments.
I think that is something that I find interesting in
terms of these more apocalyptic movies, the idea that when
we're faced with something we haven't seen before, that we
have no tools at our disposal, whereas well, I mean,
what we've seen with like the coronavirus pandemic. Yes, we
(31:54):
didn't have a treatment at the beginning, but we developed
the treatment. And the idea that somehow society you would
break down before we even could begin to start any
kind of intervention, to me is not super likely. I mean,
what what do you think?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, Fortunately society did not break down. It wasn't wasn't
quite obvious there for a while. But no, yeah, no,
I think I think that you can see that with
ingenuity and resources, and I mean, there's a lot of
smart people around the world that can work towards solving
a problem. And so oftentimes it's an issue of priority, prioritization,
(32:28):
and in some cases it's about you know, in our system,
it's about the commercial market, and so can you make
you know, can a pharmaceutical you know, company make money
off of a treatment? And so for a lot of
you know, antibiotics and anti fungals. There's not a huge
incentive for you know, you can't make a huge amount
of money off of an antibotic you take for two weeks,
(32:51):
you know, versus a medicine you take for the rest
of your life. You know, you can make a ton
of money off of or cancer therapy where you're on
it for several weeks or months. And so there has
been sort of a disincentive and sort of sort of disinvestments.
I'm not sure if that's a word, but under we'll say,
an underinvestment and new sort of anti microbial agents, both
(33:11):
for bacteria as well as for fungi and so so
cryptic coccus, for instance, is considered sort of a neglected
uh neglected disease by the FDA, and so there's some
incentives and things that people can and try to you know,
bring a new drug to market, and they have sort
of incentives to do so. But still it's a big
it's a big reach. And so for you know, some
(33:34):
diseases as well, we have treatments for them, you know,
like valley fever that's in California with coxy there are
you know, could you have better treatments. And then so
I think we still need better treatments for a lot
of the fungi just because the treatments are pretty toxic
that we have sometimes.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
So what you're saying is that medical care should be
based on science and human health rather than profits, which
I think is strange and interesting.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Well, it's it's you know, I think sometimes can you
can you how do you align? The question is really,
you know, we love a capital society, and so how
can you align profit? Motive to us is for innovation
and so you know, we can have a new headache drug,
or we can have a new erectile dysfunction drug, but
that's really not like probably the most really impactful thing
for all of human health and existence, even though you
(34:24):
can make a lot of money off of it. Yeah,
and so and so the question is how, yeah, how
do you kind of simulate a for profit, you know,
pharma system to also consider other things which are in
the public good.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I mean, maybe make them watch the Last of Us
and scare them and tell them, yes, this could definitely
happen if we don't start developing new anti fungals.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
I'll try that suggestion. That not sure that will work tough,
but that there are some things in the pipeline and
there are a lot of this goes back to basic
science and stuff of like people working in tubes and
sort of you know, in mouse models and sort of
all the sort of basic science stuff to identify new
targets and so those targets can be moved forward and
look at what if you block that target. And so
it is kind of a long road of taking you know,
(35:11):
a concept to them, like into a drug trial and
humans is a long long road that can take you know,
decades or more sometimes.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, so we yeah, it is. It is something that
we really have to incentive. I hate the word incentivized,
but yes, incentivize, push, push towards doing well before we go.
Is there anything that you want I would like people
to know about fungus or the relationship between fungus or
(35:41):
and human health, or or why you're interested in mycology?
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Well, I think you know FUNCHI are diverse, you know organisms,
and so one of the more common ones that that
people might be familiar with is sacrimice uh servecea, which
is Brewers, yes, which is used and you don't have
to make wine to make you know, flour and baking,
and so there are good things, and there's good properties
(36:05):
that have been developed with with some yeast. Most of
these live in the environment and don't cause any human disease,
and they're part of thor of the natural process of decaying,
you know, dead and dyeing plant matter, and I guess
animal matter as well. But there are a handful that
certainly can cause serious disease, and they can be highly fatal,
(36:26):
and we certainly do need more better therapies. But yeah,
people are working on those, but it's kind of a
slow closet log often, and so you know, I'm I
don't know, I guess halfway through my career, but I
still consider myself a buddy mycologist and still learning along
the way of all the interesting things that these organisms
can do and how best we can help people with
(36:47):
these impressions.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
So don't judge a fungus by its cap is sort
of the lesson here, or should we sometimes? I don't know.
I've never picked a wild mushroom and tried to eat
it because I cannot judge a motion by its cap
responsibly without maybe poisoning myself.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I think that's probably good analogis. Some can be wonderful
and some will field.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Professor
David Wilware, and for answering my questions.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
That's it's pleasure to be here. Thank you for the
invit
Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Mini Parasites Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
and today on the show The Last of Us more
like the Best Fungus, We're talking about O Field Cordyceps
and other fungi as we explore the possibilities of a
fungal infection taking control of the brain. Could there be
(00:30):
a fungal zombie apocalypse such as is depicted in the
Last of Us? Is ofield cord Aceps real and how
does it function in nature? How much do humans need
to fear the fungus? Discover this and more as we
answer the age old question can ants contemplate the horrors
of their existence? Joining me to help answer these questions
(00:52):
is Infectious Diseases doctor and self described budding mycologist, Professor
David Bulwer. Welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Hey, it's great to be here. Thank you for the invite.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I really like how you call yourself a budding mycologist.
Don't think I missed that little fungus pun.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Oh, it's it is. I'm still budding. I think there's
a lot to learn. I think that's that's really what
the pun is about there's a lot to learn about fungus,
and so I'm still learning along the way.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I mean absolutely, I am also learning about fungus. I'm
by no means a fungal expert. I do know specifically
about Ofio cordyceps because of how famous it is in
terms of its effects on ants. But fungus is it
is such a I mean, first of all, it's an
incredibly diverse group of organisms. So a you have just
(01:40):
by knowing one type of fungus. It's not like you
know the entire fungal uh you know group. It's They're
very diverse, and they're all they all function in very
weird in different ways. I don't know how anyone can
ever have a total mastery over fungus.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, I certainly a talent. Unfortunately, the majority of you know,
fungus doesn't cause disease in humans. There's you know, hundreds
and millions of species of fungi which are distinct from
plants and distinct from animals in their own kingdom, but
only handful of them actually cause pathologic disease in humans.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Right, Yeah, I think that is really important to note.
It's not as if they are all out to get us.
It's kind of like when people think of bats as
being all these blood sucking, bloodthirsty little creatures, and it's
like the majority most bat species are either nectivorous, frugivorous,
(02:35):
or insectivorous. There's only one or two species that actually
drink blood, and so they get this like creepy bad rap,
But most of them are not what people think. And
it's the same thing with fungus. They most fungus is good,
I mean or neutral. It's not something we have to
worry about. So in the very popular TV so it
(03:00):
actually came from a video game called The Last of Us.
It depicts a pandemic zombie apocalypse. The fungus in the show,
a species of ophiocort Aceps contaminated food at a cereal
factory I think in Jakarta and then spread globally when
people ate the contaminated food. This is all fictional, don't panic.
(03:22):
People started showing signs of aggression, biting or killing others.
There's a mycologist in a show that determined it was
ofio coort Aceps, which typically infects arthropods. So arthropods are
invertebrates like insects, and spiders, and then it takes control
of their behavior of their bodies. But somehow, in this
(03:44):
fictional world, the o Fio cord Aceps jumps to humans,
infects humans, takes over their brains, and drives people to
violently kill or bite other people, thus infecting them, you know,
the classic zombie trope and the infect kind of a
twist on that those that the infected humans slowly become
(04:05):
subsumed by this fungus, becoming coded and fun It's kind
of funny because when I look at the visuals of
the show, kind of looks like not just one species
of fungus, it looks like all sorts of different species covering.
I mean, for the visual impact, I think it is cool,
if not a little bit unrealistic. But yeah, it's just
that their whole bodies get covered in this fungus and
(04:27):
then they spread it through biting people or like I guess,
kind of mouth to mouth fillament transmission, which is an
interesting twist on it. Have you have you seen the
show at all? Doctors?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, and really I have not seen the show. When
it came out, I was I was out of the country,
and I have not gone back to track of town
and lash it. So, but I've heard of a lot
about it, so it seems very entertaining. You know, maybe
not factually accurate, but you know that's it's entertainment value.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah exactly. I mean I could still enjoy it, even
though throughout the first episode I kept leaning over to
my husband and commenting like, no, that doesn't make sense. Now,
that doesn't make sense, but you know it's I still
really like that they incorporate some actual, like some reference
to an actual fungus. That's that's neat. I think it
(05:17):
makes people curious about that kind of thing and then
want to find out more about it, which is what
we are going to try to do. So Ofio Cortaceps
is a real genus of fungus and a fascinating one
that we've talked about on the show before, but it
is not quite as the HBO show depicts it. So
(05:37):
the most famous species of Opiod Cordyceps is Ofio Cortaceps unilateralists.
It is also called the zombie ant fungus, and it
is indeed exceedingly spooky. It is found in tropical forests
all over the world and infects ants of a specific
species Campanodas leonardi. While they can infect other species of ants,
(05:59):
the fungus are most optimized for this one. So, while
foraging on the forest floor, an ant will pick up
spores like little pieces of lint on its body, and
the spore uses enzymes to break down the ants exoskeleton
and it works its way into the ant's body, which
is a kind of exfoliation that you definitely don't want
(06:22):
in this situation. These spores will develop inside the ant's
body into fungal growths and infect the ants soft tissues,
but not necessarily its brain. That's something of a misconception.
While it does seem to alter the ant's central nervous system,
it doesn't require the fungus to actually be growing inside
(06:44):
of its brain. It's infiltrating all of the ants soft tissues. Also,
it can grow like in its head, but it's not
necessarily a physical presence in the brain that is causing
the ants behavior to be modified. It as these compounds
that the fungus is releasing. So some of the behavioral
modifications that will happen is that the ants will convulse
(07:08):
and fall from the tree where usually their nest is,
onto the forest floor. Then the ants will climb up
a plant stem. They will grip onto the underside of
the leaf. Usually there's like a vein on the underside
of the leaf that they clamp down on with its mandibles,
specifically on the north side of the plant, which is interesting.
(07:30):
There's some speculation that it optimizes where it grips for
moisture levels and temperature being ideal for the fungus. And
it will stay there until the fungus overcomes the ant
and kind of grows into this. You know, it looks
very creepy, this sort of ant covered in fungus gripped
(07:51):
onto this leaf. The ofio Cordyceps universalis will grow its
hyphe into the ant. And Hyphae are these branching, vein
like structures of a fungus. They're also known as filaments,
which allows the fungus to expand and transport nutrients. In
a group of hyphae is called a micellium. The ant
(08:15):
becomes overwhelmed by the micellium, which also roots the ant
to the leaf, and then finally, after around four to
ten days, a fruiting body or bodies will grow from
the ant, which looks like a little stem with a
bulb on top and then that will distribute the spores. So, uh,
while this fungus is called the zombie ant fungus. Once
(08:37):
the ant is dead, it's just dead. It's not gonna
reanimate this this dead ant. So do we so, doctor will,
where do we see any kind of fungus like this
in humans that takes like takes over our brains and
our bodies and controls us in this way?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Oh exactly. I mean there are certain types of fungus
that can cause infections of the brain, and they can
alter people's behavior certainly, but usually they just make people
really really sick.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. And one thing that's interesting
to me is that this is definitely a scary thing
that is real, right, this is a real fungus. But
the only animals it seems like that it seems to
have this kind of specific control over are arthropods insects,
(09:34):
And so is it when we see something that impacts
a an arthropod or an insect or a spider, Like,
how typical is it for diseases or something that is
like zoonotic to originate from an insect versus something that
is closer to us on the evolutionary tree.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, so a lot of things, a lot of fun
Fungus can affect cold blooded animals and cold blooded you know, insects,
et cetera. And one of the theories behind why are
mammals warm blooded is that that the temperature difference protects
us against bungle diseases. And so that's sort of one
of the hypotheses and theories of why sort of mammals
(10:19):
sort of escaped after sort of you know, sort of
the great sort of the dinosaurs and sort of you know,
the meteorites sort of striking the earth and sort of
causing sort of dust clouds and all the plants dying
off with that. Then fungus is sort of a big
part of decaying plant matter, and so breaking down plants
(10:40):
and sort of that process of decay is what fungi
normally do in the environment. And so one of the
theories of why then mammals sort of exploded and sort
of took off after that is the temperature difference. Being
warm blooded protects us from fungus because most fungus does
not grow very well at ninety eight degrees temperature.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
That's really interesting, I mean, it kind of makes sense too.
Then that when we see this specific ant controlling behavior
or something like OFEO. Cortyceps, it actually directs the ant
to a very specific part of the forest floor. It's
not content to just infect the ant wherever it is
and the ant, you know, sprouts the fruiting body. It
(11:22):
has evolved to kind of modulate the ant's behavior in
such a way that the ant goes to like the
underside of a leaf somewhere, whether there's the right amount
of humidity, the right temperature, because really it wants kind
of a ideal environment for itself. So to somehow be
able to jump to a human and infect a human,
(11:42):
it would require that it overcome this need for this
very specific temperature range. And it seems that seems quite
difficult to make such a leap.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
It to us, and so most most fungus doesn't do that.
But you know, one of the concerns with global warming
is that the ambient temperature and the environment humans and
many places of the globe is coming closer and closer together.
Such things that can live in the environment quite happily,
there may be a selection pressure where they can jump
to humans. And so at present, I'm in Minnesota, there's
(12:15):
a big difference between ancient temperature outside and the environment
and what it is in the body. But in other
places around the world you've got high temperatures and so
that that bearer may be less.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean we have seen that in
animals where the change in climate will change the situation
that that animal has with something like a bacteria from
being basically they can sort of coexist to it overwhelming
the animal, like the syga antelope, which was able to
(12:48):
co exist with a bacteria that would live it. They're
these so sayga antelope or these really interesting animals. They
have these huge proboscises. It looks like the beginnings of
an elephant trun but then it just kind of stops.
And you know these these proboscises are they breathe in
a lot of air and they kind of like cool
(13:09):
down the air or warm up the air, depending on
like their needs. It's like a portable air conditioners slash
heater unit. And so in their noses like they would
there's often like bacteria bacteria well like moist warm areas,
but they were their immune systems are able to fight
(13:29):
off the bacteria in their nose when it's at a
certain level, but when it's above a certain level, they
can no longer fight it off. And the temperature change.
The temperature just being a little bit warmer made conditions
a little bit better for this bacteria. And so you
had whole herds of siga antelope just dropping dead mysteriously
like it was very, very creepy because you'd have this
(13:50):
entire herd of antelope just dead on the ground and
finding out that it's because well, the temperature is a
little higher, so the bacteria was able to thrive a
little that are it is creepy and it is a
little bit spooky. This idea that fungus uh, you know,
if it is driven a little bit towards being able
(14:10):
to exist in a warmer environment, then it would potentially
be more of a risk to humans.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I very mentioned so that that's a little bit of
a concern. And and so some of the you know,
environmental sort of kind of explosion with back A fungus
called a Canada Orius in particular is one of those
that's more thermotolerant. And so one of the theories of
why that's been selected out and is due to sort
(14:38):
of the increased temperatures, as well as sort of fundicide
use a sort of in the environment and agriculture of
anti fungal agents us used to protect crops.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
That's yeah, I mean, that's kind of reminds me of
the we have a lot of concerns about the overuse
of antibacterials and antibiotics. But yeah, the overuse of anti fungals,
I guess I that that concern I don't hear about
too much. But how big of a concern do you
think that is?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Well, there's a lot of different So for plants, if
you think about your tomato plant, like, you can get
sort of various sort of diseases and a lot of
those are mold and funguses basically that they can affect
the plants. And so in agriculture, you know, molds are
are big deal. Molds are a type of fungus, and
so there are a number of different you know, anti
fungal properties. You know, compounds are used for agriculture, and
(15:33):
so a lot of those are not used in humans,
but but some of them actually are. They're in the
same class that we use in humans. And so that
that alarms me a little bit because we're starting to
see more and more anti fungal resistance, and so with that,
I would say, don't use compounds that are using humans
in agriculture. But that's all.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Right, I'll stop doing that. Well, uh so we're going
to take a quick break, but when we get we
will be talking about some of the claims that the
HBO show makes about fungus and using that kind of
as a jumping off point to talk more about the
impacts that fungi can have on human health. So we
(16:17):
are back, and I am very lucky to be joined
by Professor David Bulware, who is an infectious diseases doctor
with an acute awareness of fungus and the risks of fungus.
And I think that whenever people watch a show like
The Last of Us, I mean, people know it's fiction,
(16:39):
people know it's science fiction, but it is it brings
up these ideas of like of a fungal pandemic, and
so sometimes the show will say things like in the
beginning of the show, it talked about one of the
dangers of this this sort of outbreak of this fungus
is that they have no treatments for fungal infections. Now,
(17:03):
before the break, we just talked about the potential over
use of anti fungals. So already that's not quite accurate, right, Like,
it's not that we don't have anything that treats fungus.
You can pick it up off the shelf of pharmacy.
You can get you know, cream for athletes foot, which
is a type of anti fungal. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Correct? There are a number of anti fungal proper compounds
and treatments, summer creams, ointment that are topical, and there's
a handful of them that they're used you know, orally
or intravenously, but there's not that many real different therapies
we have. And so there's maybe I don't know a
dozen or so in total of different anti fungal compounds
(17:47):
that we use in humans, and it's pretty it's a
pretty limited scope.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
So maybe the nuance that is sort of lost in
the you know, zombie Apocalypse show is that yes, we
do have treatments for a fungus, but maybe they're not
as specified or as numerous as the treatments we say
have for viral infections or bacterial infections.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
But we don't have that many treatments for viral infections.
But we do have a lot of antabatics, and so
with you know, anti fungal you know medicines. There's sort
of three or four classes of anti fungal medicines. Some
of them are pretty toxic, you know, some of them
are less toxic. But you know, we do see resistance
and we see some you know, some fungi that could
(18:31):
be resistant to all three classes of anti fungals.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I see, and maybe we're not making that situation better
if we over use anti fungals in agriculture.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Well it's probably not super helpful, but I mean there
are different anti fungal things that are not used in
humans that can certainly be used in agriculture. So I
think the same in you know, in livestock, of using
the same antibiotics that we use in livestock. You know,
it's awesome, a major source of resistance in the US.
It's something about eighty percent of all antibatics or used
(19:06):
in livestock about twenty percent.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
This kind of ties into this idea of the evolution
of fungus. So something like in the show O Field
cord Aceps starts out in arthropods. I don't know of
any mammals really that O Field cord aceps effects, and
(19:28):
so it seems to make this jump from arthropods to humans.
Do you think that it's realistic from an evolutionary point
of view for a fungus to jump from an arthropod
like an ant to a human without kind of any
evolutionary steps in between.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Without a million years in between. Unlikely? But there are certainly,
you know, fungi that do exist that can affect humans.
And so I would be more concerned about sort of
the current some of the current agents that we have,
certain agents, but the pathogens we have more so than
some novel fungus coming out, although Canada orus is somewhat
(20:08):
of a novel fungus that has emerged and caused major
problems and hospitals and healthcare centers and in some cases
with outbreaks.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I see, So, how recent is this one? And you
call it Candida.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Orus kind of orus like your ear orus?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Uh, it's it's over the kind of the last decade
where it's sort of emerged and and it's sort of
niche is that it's it's anti fungal resistant, uh, and so,
and it tends to there's been sort of sporadic cases
that have happened and CDCs has tracked numerous outbreaks and
sort of behaves kind of weird, you know, unusual for
for a fun guy.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
In what ways is it unusual?
Speaker 2 (20:47):
It's more aggressive, and it's very hardy, where it's resistant
not only to anti fungals but also to standard environmental
cleaning and and things like that. Some of the cleaning
agents that it's it's pretty robust against. And so it's
something that has caused certainly problems. And this has sort
of spread around the world from where when it was
initially identified a little over a decade ago.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
And what kinds of problems does it cause for humans,
like in terms of illness, Well.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Well, normally particularly you know fun bunch I are really
good at picking up basic people who have weakened immune systems,
so people who are you compromised, and that can be
due to a variety of reasons. It can be due
to you know, cancer, chemotherapy, bone a mari of transplantation
and things like that. Can also be to do HIV.
(21:36):
But there's also a lot of new model antibodies that
are used for in rheumatology and other treatments, and so
those suppressed immune system in certain ways, and so that
can predispose people to fungal infections. And so when you
hear the TV commercials about if you've been exposed to
perculosis or places where there may be fungal infections they're
talking about, you know, those issues where it predisposes you
(21:58):
to risk of infection. But you know, for the most part,
most fungi kind of affect immuno compromise people for the
for the most part. There are some exceptions, however, and
a couple of those exceptions are things what we term
is endemic micoses. They're sort of endemic to certain regions
around the world, and they live in sort of the
(22:19):
environment that they can form spores and you can inhale
those in and you can get sick even if you're
not immunocompromised. And so one of the more common ones
is something called valley fever is coxidiorities micosis, and so
that's in sort of the central Valley of California and
in Arizona and kind of southwestern regions, but also up
(22:40):
as far north as Yakama in Washington, and so that's
sort of inhaled spores that can cause a pneumonia and
can cause serious disease and a subset of people similarly
in the Midwest, or something called histoplasmosis, which also is
inhaled spore that you can be exposed to and can
cause illness, serious illness and you know, kind of regular people.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
That's interesting because I so there is this computer game
that predated this show, and it actually did feature inhaling
spores as being in a root of infection, whereas now
it seems like the show emphasizes like being bitten as
a root of infection for fungus. Now, can you be like,
(23:25):
can you get like a fungal infection through like an
animal bite or scratch or something. Is that like a
typical rooter? Is that more typically like a root for
bacterial infection?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, with with bite as usially it's a bacterial infection.
You have a lot of bacteria that live in your mouth,
and so that that's usually bacterial infection. But you can't
have sort of you know, if you had a stick
or something that that pokes your pokes to your skin,
sort of a local localized inoculation where you kind of
have have stuck something into your skin, splinters or wood
(23:56):
or something like that. Sometimes you can see local, local action,
but the majority of funel infections are inhaled and so
where you're inhaling the scores and so that's the majority
of infections that are current in humans with funel infections,
that's usually the route of entry for most most fungus.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So so far, we don't have to worry too much
about a biting zombie apocalypse. More like a floating cloud
that we should avoid.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, a windy day that that that's good. But you
know your your immune system and you know we you're
exposed to to fungus and spores in the environment every
day when you're outside on a windy day, and so
it's usually it's not a big deal. Your body's immune
system takes care of it. You don't even know that
you've been exposed. The exceptions would be if you're exposed
to a lot all at once, or you're you're exposed
(24:47):
to something to and your immune system is weakend for
some reason.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Well, that kind of reminds me of like the when
house mold can actually cause problems for people. So mold
is a type of fungus, uh, and so like something
that may not be so much of a problem, and
say a wide open field or a bog where you're
not you know, kind of you're in the open space,
like if it's in a home with not great ventilation,
(25:15):
Is that where you see maybe more problems with like
inhalation of spores.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah, some people will, particularly they can develop sort of
an allergic response, and so it's a hyper you know,
kind of hyper response to certain molds and an ascent allergy.
And so with that that can trigger asthma. I can
trigger other sort of respiray diseases that can serve as
a trigger for that. And so certainly that that can
(25:41):
be a case and is common likely with with a
trigger for a lot of people's asthma.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Well, we are going to take another quick break, but
when we return, we're going to talk about the likelihood
of a brain infection by a fungus. So you're back
right before the break. We're talking about like allergic reactions,
and that kind of reminds me of the one of
the most the bane of my existence at least is
(26:11):
the fungus that causes dandruff. Because not everyone like every
the way I heard it, explain to me and correct
me if I'm wrong about this, is that there are
some very common fung guy that are often found on humans,
on people, and they often don't cause problems, but some
(26:31):
people have more of a reaction to that, and that
can cause anything from like dandruff to other adverse skin
reactions like eczema. And I have had a lot of
skin reactions or you know, sort of a scalp itchiness
that I think I am particularly affected by this fungus.
(26:54):
But so like it is that it do. People's reactions
to fungus kind of very depending on you know, your
immune system or just your physiology.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, dandrift can be caused by a fungus called Malsesia,
which is a common thing that lives on people's skin.
You know, some people who lives there and it's happy
and it's just sort of present and not a big deal.
Some people will develop more of this, you know, more
inflammatory hyper response to it and get dandrift and get
subaric dermatitis and sort of other conditions that are a
(27:28):
response to that. And so it's sort of the immune
system's response to that fungi that can cause information.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, so I'm just unlucky that I can't be friends
with this fungus that lives on my scalp. And I
have to kill it with again a shampoo that has
an anti fungal in it, which so I do feel
a little bit protected in a fungal apocalypse situation because
I would just use my anti fungalampoo on these.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I'm not sure if that's gonna kind of really work
too well for you. Probably probably okay with preventing your
zombie apocalypse as long.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
As it is a zombie apocalypse caused by really itchy
zombies with suborg dermatitis. So, but that these are like
a lot of the fungal infections that are most commonly
known like athletes foot candida, you know, like suborg dermatitis,
(28:31):
these are there are more topical infections. We did talk
a little bit about inhaled spores that can cause you know,
respiratory issues, but it seems like it's pretty rare for
something like a fungal infection too. I mean, for for
most types of infection, to reach the brain is quite
(28:52):
rare because we have a blood brain barrier. The brain
is quite well protected. But sometimes things do actually reach
the brain. And there is I only know of one
actually through your Twitter, which is cryptococcal meningitis. So can
(29:12):
you talk a little bit about this form of infection.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, so cryptococus, it's another yeastcryptoccus nea foremans is a
common thing. Once again, it's in the environment. Everyone is
sort of exposed to it and you live your life
happily ever after, and you never know you've been exposed
to it if you become immuno compromised, or once again,
if you're exposed to a lot all at once, some
people can get pretty sick, and so some people will
(29:37):
do aut peumonia. But the most sort of pure complication
is meningitis, where the fungus basically disseminates from the lungs
through your bloodstream throughout the whole body, but also into
your brain and can sort of lodge into the blood
vessels of your brain. And there's a couple different theories
of how it crosses the blood brain barier, but gets
into the brain and surrounds the brain. And when it
(29:59):
surrounds the brain, it it kind of plugs up the
absorption of how your spinal fluid is absorbed, and so
it kind of it's like a clugg sink where it
sort of backs up, and so it creates a high
pressure around your brain which sort of slowly crushes your brain,
which sounds terrible, and it very much is terrible. And
so it's a slow growing infection like a lot of
(30:21):
bacterial menogitis, and so it's something that develops over days
to weeks to months, and so people will eventually show
up to healthcare just complain of this unrelenting headache, that
this is terrible. And so it's a pretty unpleasant disease.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
I would say, yeah, So, I mean, is this something
that can be fatal?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I certainly can be fatal. It's probably one of the
more fatal fungal infections. It's also highly treatable, and so
you know among our patients and our sort of clinical
trials and things like that, about ninety percent of people
can can survive and do well long term. But you know,
without that sort of with expert care and sort of
a fair number of resources and more routine care, fatality
(31:06):
rates can be forty percent or higher.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, I mean, that's I think it is. It's interesting
that we actually do have like the quite I guess,
quite frightening diseases like brain infection caused by fungus, But
then we have treatments for it, hopefully, treatments that people
can have access to I know that that can be
(31:31):
a problem of course, getting people access to these treatments.
I think that is something that I find interesting in
terms of these more apocalyptic movies, the idea that when
we're faced with something we haven't seen before, that we
have no tools at our disposal, whereas well, I mean,
what we've seen with like the coronavirus pandemic. Yes, we
(31:54):
didn't have a treatment at the beginning, but we developed
the treatment. And the idea that somehow society you would
break down before we even could begin to start any
kind of intervention, to me is not super likely. I mean,
what what do you think?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, Fortunately society did not break down. It wasn't wasn't
quite obvious there for a while. But no, yeah, no,
I think I think that you can see that with
ingenuity and resources, and I mean, there's a lot of
smart people around the world that can work towards solving
a problem. And so oftentimes it's an issue of priority, prioritization,
(32:28):
and in some cases it's about you know, in our system,
it's about the commercial market, and so can you make
you know, can a pharmaceutical you know, company make money
off of a treatment? And so for a lot of
you know, antibiotics and anti fungals. There's not a huge
incentive for you know, you can't make a huge amount
of money off of an antibotic you take for two weeks,
(32:51):
you know, versus a medicine you take for the rest
of your life. You know, you can make a ton
of money off of or cancer therapy where you're on
it for several weeks or months. And so there has
been sort of a disincentive and sort of sort of disinvestments.
I'm not sure if that's a word, but under we'll say,
an underinvestment and new sort of anti microbial agents, both
(33:11):
for bacteria as well as for fungi and so so
cryptic coccus, for instance, is considered sort of a neglected
uh neglected disease by the FDA, and so there's some
incentives and things that people can and try to you know,
bring a new drug to market, and they have sort
of incentives to do so. But still it's a big
it's a big reach. And so for you know, some
(33:34):
diseases as well, we have treatments for them, you know,
like valley fever that's in California with coxy there are
you know, could you have better treatments. And then so
I think we still need better treatments for a lot
of the fungi just because the treatments are pretty toxic
that we have sometimes.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
So what you're saying is that medical care should be
based on science and human health rather than profits, which
I think is strange and interesting.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Well, it's it's you know, I think sometimes can you
can you how do you align? The question is really,
you know, we love a capital society, and so how
can you align profit? Motive to us is for innovation
and so you know, we can have a new headache drug,
or we can have a new erectile dysfunction drug, but
that's really not like probably the most really impactful thing
for all of human health and existence, even though you
(34:24):
can make a lot of money off of it. Yeah,
and so and so the question is how, yeah, how
do you kind of simulate a for profit, you know,
pharma system to also consider other things which are in
the public good.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I mean, maybe make them watch the Last of Us
and scare them and tell them, yes, this could definitely
happen if we don't start developing new anti fungals.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
I'll try that suggestion. That not sure that will work tough,
but that there are some things in the pipeline and
there are a lot of this goes back to basic
science and stuff of like people working in tubes and
sort of you know, in mouse models and sort of
all the sort of basic science stuff to identify new
targets and so those targets can be moved forward and
look at what if you block that target. And so
it is kind of a long road of taking you know,
(35:11):
a concept to them, like into a drug trial and
humans is a long long road that can take you know,
decades or more sometimes.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, so we yeah, it is. It is something that
we really have to incentive. I hate the word incentivized,
but yes, incentivize, push, push towards doing well before we go.
Is there anything that you want I would like people
to know about fungus or the relationship between fungus or
(35:41):
and human health, or or why you're interested in mycology?
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Well, I think you know FUNCHI are diverse, you know organisms,
and so one of the more common ones that that
people might be familiar with is sacrimice uh servecea, which
is Brewers, yes, which is used and you don't have
to make wine to make you know, flour and baking,
and so there are good things, and there's good properties
(36:05):
that have been developed with with some yeast. Most of
these live in the environment and don't cause any human disease,
and they're part of thor of the natural process of decaying,
you know, dead and dyeing plant matter, and I guess
animal matter as well. But there are a handful that
certainly can cause serious disease, and they can be highly fatal,
(36:26):
and we certainly do need more better therapies. But yeah,
people are working on those, but it's kind of a
slow closet log often, and so you know, I'm I
don't know, I guess halfway through my career, but I
still consider myself a buddy mycologist and still learning along
the way of all the interesting things that these organisms
can do and how best we can help people with
(36:47):
these impressions.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
So don't judge a fungus by its cap is sort
of the lesson here, or should we sometimes? I don't know.
I've never picked a wild mushroom and tried to eat
it because I cannot judge a motion by its cap
responsibly without maybe poisoning myself.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I think that's probably good analogis. Some can be wonderful
and some will field.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Professor
David Wilware, and for answering my questions.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
That's it's pleasure to be here. Thank you for the
invit
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