JON KRAUSE
When fungal spores touch a moist patch of earth, they germinate and push hair-like hyphae deep into the soil, sucking up enough nutrients to feed the growing cells of the filaments. When a pathogenic fungal spore lands on human tissue under the right conditions, it too germinates and burrows deep into susceptible organs or multiplies like yeast, coating a tissue’s surface as it buds new offspring, colonizing and devouring the tissue beneath it.
Invasive fungal diseases often take hold when a person’s natural defenses are weakened. These infections frequently occur in hospital settings, after a patient’s normal bacterial flora is wiped out by antibiotics, or the skin and gut mucosa are breached by surgery or central venous catheters including for intravenous nutrition. In fact, candidiasis, ...
