Antifungal Therapy

This new edition maintains its goal of providing concise, practical information for busy physicians dealing with fungal infections, such as infectious disease physicians, transplant surgeons, dermatologists, and intensivists, as well as basic scientists and pharmaceutical company researchers interested in the state of antifungal therapy.

Mahmoud Ghannoum, Ph.D., MBA, FIDSA, joined Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center in 1996 from prior positions at the UCLA School of Medicine and Kuwait University. Dr. Ghannoum has spent his entire academic career studying medically important fungi encompassing different fungal pathogens including Candida, Aspergillus and Cryptococcus, the major causes of fungal infections. He published more than 250 peer-reviewed articles addressing various aspects of superficial and systemic fungal infections. Recently he published the first study describing the oral mycobiome of health individuals. He has published extensively in the area of fungal pathogenesis with special focus on virulence factors including phospholipase B, germination, adhesion, and biofilm formation, both in vitro and in vivo. Dr. Ghannoum is a Professor and Director of the Center for Medical Mycology at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center. The center of excellence he directs is a multidisciplinary center that combines basic and translational research investigating fungi from the test tube to the bedside. He has performed several studies investigating the mechanisms underlying Candida pathogenesis. He is the recipient of the Freedom to Discover Award from Bristol-Myers Squibb, the Billy Cooper Award from the Medical Mycological Society of the Americas. In 2009 he was appointed as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Antifungal Susceptibility Testing, Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute. In 2013, he was appointed as an Advisor to the CLSI Consensus Microbiology Committee, and was selected as “Most Interesting Person” by Cleveland Magazine. Dr. Ghannoum has been involved in preclinical and clinical studies evaluating the efficacy of antifungals. He has in-depth interest and expertise in oral complications of HIV/AIDS, particularly oral candidiasis, and acted as the Chair of the Oral HIV-AIDS Research Alliance (OHARA) and the PI of OHARA’s Medical Mycology Unit based at Case. Dr. Ghannoum has been involved in characterizing the oral microbiome in health and disease, specifically pioneering characterization of the human mycobiome (the fungal component of the human microbiota that make up the normal flora in HIV patients). This research may identify relationships between fungal species and their effect on various human diseases.

John R. Perfect, MD, is Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, Associate Professor of Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, a faculty member of the Duke University Interdisciplinary Program in Genetics, and Director of the Duke University Mycology Research Unit. Dr. Perfect is a diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine and American Board of Infectious Diseases. After receiving an undergraduate degree in biology from Wittenberg University, Dr. Perfect went on to receive a medical degree from the Medical College of Ohio at Toledo. He then completed an internship at the Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio; a residency in internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor; and a fellowship in infectious diseases at Duke University Medical Center. A past-Fellow and member of the American Society for Microbiology and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Dr. Perfect is also a member of the American Federation of Clinical Research, International Society for Human and Animal Mycology, and Immunocompromised Host Society. He is on the editorial boards of Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice, Infection and Immunity, and Expert Reviews of Antifungal Therapy, and is Associate Editor of Antifungal Drug Resistance Update. Dr. Perfect has served on numerous committees and advisory boards. He is also the author of more than 300 articles and more than 250 abstracts, editorials, and letters. Dr. Perfect’s research interests focus on the understanding of fungal pathogenesis through the study of Cryptococcus neoformans as well as clinical studies on the epidemiology, diagnosis, and management of invasive mycoses.