Postdoctoral Fellowship: PRFB: Uncovering ecological and evolutionary drivers of fungal pathogen spread

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2024, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment, and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. Soil fungal pathogens are emerging as major threats to human health, yet little is known about how they spread. As there are currently no vaccines available for fungal diseases, and few antifungal agents, understanding this process is essential for protecting public health. The objective of this proposal is to identify the environmental drivers of soil fungal pathogen spread, focusing on Coccidioides immitis – the pathogen causing Valley Fever. This research will uncover the roles of landscape structure and local climate on shaping fungal pathogen distributions. Additionally, the fellow will mentor students in biology research and will partner with local public health officials to translate these results into improved disease surveillance and mitigation efforts. The fellow will use a large bank of Coccidioides immitis soil samples from across the native region in the Southwestern U.S for whole genome sequencing and experiments testing for local adaptation to temperature. This approach will identify the role of landscape barriers (e.g., mountains, highways), wind dispersal, and local temperature in shaping the environmental distribution and spread of C. immitis. Further, the fellow will use the sequence data generated here to predict heat tolerance in other fungal pathogen species, to identify those with potential to overcome human body temperature barriers and become human pathogens. The fellow will receive expert training on population genomics and bioinformatics, and, in turn, seeks to broaden participation in STEM through mentorship of trainees in collaborative research. Further, the fellow with partner with the California Department of Public Health to provide insights on the mechanisms facilitating fungal pathogen spread, thus improving efforts to trace infections to specific environmental reservoirs and identify hotspots of exposure risk under current and future climate conditions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.