Research

Our lab is interested in understanding how yeasts living on skin and mucosal tissues of humans and animals modulate the balance between health and disease. From our research we have learned how these little unicellular creatures interact with the immune system to strengthen the defences at the body surfaces, which in turn ensure that the fungi remain under control and do not make us sick.

Understanding these interconnections is important, given the high burden of disease caused by yeast and other fungi. Up to 25% of the worldwide population is affected by a fungal infection and >1.5 mio people die every year of an incurable fungal disease, with numbers rising.