When fungi attack

Abstract

Lula was eight years old when her father gave her brother, who wanted to be a doctor, a microscope. A cousin told her, that through it, she could see many microorganisms if she saw the dirty water from a flower vase. She did it and found a wonderful world that intrigued her. Since that day, Lula´s question, who nowadays is a bacteriologist with a PhD in Science with Emphasis on Immunology, Luz Elena Cano Restrepo, is: “How such a small organism that lacks intelligence, can kill a human being who is intelligent?”.

This is why, this PhD who directs the Medical and Experimental Mycology research group, today, is dedicated to the study of fungi, and together with other researchers of Corporación para Investigaciones Biológicas – CIB, and from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Universidad de Antioquia, Universidad de Medellín, and Universidad de Concepción, this last one located in Chile, develop the project: Microbial agents encapsulated in nanoparticles functionalized with Nano-bodies, a therapeutic solution for intracellular infections, with the objective of finding a solution such as the case of histoplasmosis.