COLUMBUS -- A microbiologist at The Ohio State University has received a five-year, $425,000 award to further her research on a yeast that causes several potentially serious infections in humans.

Paula Sundstrom, an associate professor of molecular virology, will receive the award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. It will help support her work to identify more efficient methods for treating infections caused by Candida albicans.

Part of her research will focus on identifying the genes that cause Candida to grow in the host.

"By identifying these genes, we will be able to invent new strategies to inhibit Candida's ability to grow," she said.

Candida causes mild, treatable infections such as thrush in infants and vaginitis in women. But in people with weakened immune systems - such as patients with HIV or AIDS, transplant or chemotheraphy patients -Candida can proliferate. And among the serious infections that people acquire while in the hospital - the nosocomial infections - Candida is one of the top five pathogens and can be fatal.

In a paper published last year by the journal Science, Sundstrom discovered the protein that lets Candida flourish. This protein lets the yeast adhere to the moist environment in the body, from the inside of the mouth to the lining of the esophagus.

"Candida used to be considered a fairly innocuous pathogen," Sundstrom said. "The medical community now considers it to be very important. It's when the body's immune defenses become impaired in some other way that Candida becomes such a threat."

The Burroughs Wellcome Fund supports research on emerging infectious diseases, and Candida qualifies as an important pathogen, according to the Fund. "Fungal infections pose a serious and growing health problem, in part because of the relative scarcity of safe and effective antifungal drugs."

Sundstrom's current research goals are twofold: she's studying the regulation of a protein - called Hwp1 - found in Candida as well as that protein's ability to adhere to surfaces inside the body.

"We want to be able to develop inhibitors that would curb this adhesive activity," Sundstrom said. "We hope to find a drug to give to patients at risk for candidiasis that could help them resist Candida's ability to grow."

Sundstrom's past research shows that without Hwp1, Candida stands little chance of flourishing. "It can sometimes still grow on the walls of the esophagus, but these abscesses are much less severe," she said.

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