Aspergillus website 10th anniversary Symposium
 This year marks the tenth year that the Aspergillus website has been running and we marked the occasion with a symposium on the 3rd March 2008 for sponsors, invited friends and patients along with Trustees of both the Fungal Research Trust and the Aspergillus Trust.
Talks from Prof. David Denning (Chief medical editor) and website team members Dr Graham Atherton and Dr Jennifer Bartholomew were attended by over 60 participants in a very successful event.
 Statistics presented by Graham Atherton showed that the Aspergillus Website is currently reaching record levels of use with well over 420 000 page requests in January 2008 and over two thirds of the countries of the world using the website during the average month with more than 26 000 individual computers accessing the website.!
This month
The outstanding website development this month is the extensive update of the treatment article for Invasive Pulmonary Aspergillosis (IPA) by Professor Denning. Using the latest guidelines and incorporating the latest drugs it is definitely a 'must read'.
The Aspergillus Website and the Fungal Research Trust provided most of the materials and two interviews for the recent nationwide story on 2 cases of neonatal aspergillosis at Salford Royal Hospital in Manchester - read about it in the Aspergillus blog.
Latest News and Articles
There have been 25 additions to the articles section. Two of these have used green fluorescence protein as a visual marker for studies with Aspergillus. We have picked out these and a few of the other highlights here:
Development of a GFP-Expressing Aspergillus flavus Strain
to Study Fungal Invasion, Colonization, and Resistance
in Cottonseed
Green fluorescent protein (GFP) glows bright green and can be attached to many cells and subcellular components, including fungal cells and cell components. In this study the entire fungus (Aspergillus flavus) glowed brightly, so the research team were able to follow the ingress of fungal conidia (spores) into cotton seeds, identifying the route of entry of the spores into the plant. They were than able to see where the fungal growth took place as the new fungal hyphae also glowed bright green, and they even claim that they could see some secondary metablite production by the fungus deep within plant tissues.
This glowing aspergillus strain could prove to be a valuable tool when investigating pathogen invasion and host resistance.
GFP-tagged expression analysis revealed that some histidine kinases of Aspergillus nidulans show temporally and spatially different expression during the life cycle.
In this study GFP was used to follow the expression of several histidine kinase (HK) genes - the GFP was fused to the mechanisms that control HK so that it would be switched on whenever the HK was switched on.
HK is postulated to be an important gene for controlling gene expression but there are many of these genes in each cell - A. nidulans has at least 15. This study looks at when the GFP-fused genes are expressed over time during the cell cycle, at where the genes are expressed within the fungus (spacial arrangement) and at gene expression during sexual differentiation. Some differences were detected so there is some evidence that although each HK gene carries out a similar function, it does it at different times or in distinct subcellular locations.
Fungus balls of the paranasal sinuses: a review
A review of the clinical,
radiological, and pathological presentation of the fungus
ball of the paranasal sinuses as well as the surgical management
with emphasis on the transnasal endoscopic approach.
 Black olives as substrate for Aspergillus parasiticus growth and aflatoxin B1 production
A short experiment that demonstrated black olives do not make a good substrate for the growth of Aspergillus parasiticus, a known producer of aflatoxin B1.
Diagnosis
Several new articles have been added including : "Diagnosis of invasive septate mold infections. A correlation of microbiological culture and histologic or cytologic examination" and ‘Deep’ white superficial onychomycosis
due to molds
Educational
 34 slide presentations from the 3rd Advances Against Aspergillosis meeting and 8 slide presentations from the 3rd Trends in Medical Mycology meeting are available for download in the slides section. Authors include Robert Samson, Johan Maertens, Bill Nierman and David Denning.
Medical
Images
 In the image library in the "other" section there are three CT scans showing non-union of the sternum after an aortic valve replacement, as a result of local Aspergillus fumigatus infection. The patient had a sternal wound and osteomyelitis after valve replacement.
Images of a patient with severe kyphoscoliosis caused by more than 40 years of prednisolone for ABPA and asthma can be seen in the allergic aspergillosis section of the image library.
Genomics
The genomics section of the website is about to have a large addition which willl cause large scale changes for that and other sections. The CADRE website is to become closely interlinked with the Aspergillus website and in particular the metabolite information - it currently contains complete genomes for three Aspergillus species (fumigatus, oryzae and nidulans) with more to come. The project should be complete towards the end of this year.
Searching the website
We now have a dedicated Google Search Appliance for this website. This means you can search the Aspergillus website using Google and it will include nearly all documents on the website (pdf, doc, ppt, html, php etc). and will include parts of the secure sections and eventually index images - a big improvement on earlier search facilites. Try it out here.
HonCode
 Health on the Net Foundation (HonCode) are the formost accrediation service for health-oriented websites. The Aspergillus website has been accredited since 1999 and this has once again been reaffirmed after the latest review in August 2007
RSS
Download our updates and articles automatically every time we add to those pages- no need to wait for the next newsletter. Use RSS.
What is RSS and how do I use it? Get help here.
Thanks for reading!
Visit our website again soon.
The Aspergillus Team. |
