DEADLY diseases caused by airborne fungal spores may soon be prevented with a
new kind of vaccine. Researchers have already used a vaccine to prevent similar
infections in mice.
A fungal infection almost killed legendary folk singer Bob Dylan in 1997.
Dylan inhaled airborne spores of the soil fungus Histoplasma capsulatum.
The infection attacked the lining of his heart. “He was hospitalised but got
over it,” says Bruce Klein, a mycologist at the University of Wisconsin in
Madison who is developing the world’s first anti-fungal vaccine, against
Blastomyces dermatitidis. This fungus can cause an uncommon form of
pneumonia called blastomycosis…
