Dr. Stephen Dolan has revealed previously unknown information about how bacteria and fungi interact in the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis (CF), which could lay the groundwork for more effective treatment and detection of polymicrobial lung infections in people with CF.
CF, one of the most common genetic diseases in the United States, causes an abnormally sticky, thick mucus to build up in the lungs, providing the perfect breeding ground for infections.
“Everybody at home knows somebody affected by CF because it’s so prevalent,” said Dolan, who said his CF-related research allows him to do high-level microbiology that is also clinically relevant.
Dolan working with his collaborators at Georgia Tech have uncovered how two of the most commonly found microbes in the lungs of people with CF, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Aspergillus fumigatus, interact molecularly in the lungs they infect.
“Cystic fibrosis results in a wide range of challenging symptoms which impact the entire body, but repeated lung infections leading to lung damage is the major cause of mortality. It’s mostly bacteria and fungi like Pseudomonas and Aspergillus which are responsible for these infections.” said Dolan.
Dolan, who conducts his research at the Clemson University Eukaryotic Pathogens Innovation Center (EPIC), also uncovered a previously unknown toxin detection system that allows the two microbes Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Aspergillus fumigatus to co-exist in the sputum in CF lungs.
“It appears that ecologically, over millions of years, these microbes have been growing together in soil and have developed elaborate strategies to compete for space and nutrients, and then when they get into humans, those in-built mechanisms have allowed them to coexist and cause serious infections,” he said.
Dolan is able to conduct his research through the support of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and a Career Transition Award (K22) from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
