What If Fungi Win?
Published on 9. July 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
224 pages
978-1-4214-4900-5 (ISBN)
Description
Could fungal pathogens outsmart us before we find ways to combat them?
Humans and fungi share nearly 50 percent of the same DNA. Because we're related, designing drugs to combat the varieties that attack us is a challenge. Meanwhile, in an ever hotter, wetter world, fungi may be finding new ways to thrive, queueing up global outbreak potentials for which no vaccine and woefully few medications exist; some fungi are already beginning to resist treatment. Among other lifeforms, bats, amphibians, and essential crops are also increasingly threatened by these pathogens.
Enter fungal kingdom frontiersman Dr. Arturo Casadevall, an epidemiologist, professor, and inventor. Casadevall shares how the 1990s AIDS epidemic's fungal complications drove his medical mycology work, how COVID-19's fungal incidences underscore the continuing threat to the immunocompromised, and how he and his Johns Hopkins University laboratory team are discovering ways to counter the threats posed by these cunning, hungry combatants.
What If Fungi Win? describes the beneficial roles of fungi along with their mischievous and deadly impacts and illustrates how committed experts like Casadevall are researching ways to save us and our food supplies. In addition to an overview of blights, lichens, molds, mushrooms, rusts, and smuts, readers will learn about:
* how fungi proliferated following the mass dinosaur extinction
* Oregon's ancient 2,384-acre Armillaria ostoyae-Earth's largest organism
* the rye fungus ergot that may have fueled the Salem witch trials
* mushrooms used to create vegan leather and eco-friendly packaging, as well as plastic-consuming fungi
* why it's critical that funding institutions pay attention to fungal risks and aid scientists in their work.
Humans and fungi share nearly 50 percent of the same DNA. Because we're related, designing drugs to combat the varieties that attack us is a challenge. Meanwhile, in an ever hotter, wetter world, fungi may be finding new ways to thrive, queueing up global outbreak potentials for which no vaccine and woefully few medications exist; some fungi are already beginning to resist treatment. Among other lifeforms, bats, amphibians, and essential crops are also increasingly threatened by these pathogens.
Enter fungal kingdom frontiersman Dr. Arturo Casadevall, an epidemiologist, professor, and inventor. Casadevall shares how the 1990s AIDS epidemic's fungal complications drove his medical mycology work, how COVID-19's fungal incidences underscore the continuing threat to the immunocompromised, and how he and his Johns Hopkins University laboratory team are discovering ways to counter the threats posed by these cunning, hungry combatants.
What If Fungi Win? describes the beneficial roles of fungi along with their mischievous and deadly impacts and illustrates how committed experts like Casadevall are researching ways to save us and our food supplies. In addition to an overview of blights, lichens, molds, mushrooms, rusts, and smuts, readers will learn about:
* how fungi proliferated following the mass dinosaur extinction
* Oregon's ancient 2,384-acre Armillaria ostoyae-Earth's largest organism
* the rye fungus ergot that may have fueled the Salem witch trials
* mushrooms used to create vegan leather and eco-friendly packaging, as well as plastic-consuming fungi
* why it's critical that funding institutions pay attention to fungal risks and aid scientists in their work.
Reviews / Votes
In What if fungi win?, Casadevall warns that climate change...could result in a few surviving fungi that are acclimatised to higher temperatures and have the potential to keep adapting....It isn't all doom and gloom in Casadevall's easy-to-read overview....After all, fungi are essential to not just our own individual survival (forming part of our microbiomes), but to the maintenance of ecosystems, and we have already benefitted from their biochemical properties....We simply need to change 'how we think and act' about fungi.-Lancet Infectious Diseases An insightful look at how fungi facilitated evolution and benefited the global biome, but also how they could be the downfall of civilization...Fascinating...Eye-opening.
-How It Works
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Baltimore, MD
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
10 s/w Abbildungen
4 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 176 mm
Width: 125 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
232 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4214-4900-5 (9781421449005)
DOI
10.56021/9781421449005
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Arturo Casadevall | Stephanie Desmon
What If Fungi Win?
E-Book
07/2024
Johns Hopkins University Press
€16.99
Available for download
Persons
Arturo Casadevall, MD, PhD, is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor and Alfred and Jill Summer Chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Casadevall is the author of more than 1,000 publications, and his key research interests are focused on host defense mechanisms, how fungi cause disease, and the development of antibody-based therapies for infectious diseases. His research on fungi has been funded for three decades by NIH and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, among others. In addition to his medical mycology work, Casadevall is an entrepreneur with several patents for fungi-based inventions, including eco-friendly packaging. He is editor-in-chief of mBio and senior editor of eLife, was deputy editor of the Journal of Clinical Investigation and serves on several editorial boards. He has served on the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and the National Commission on Forensic Science. He is currently chair of the Board of Governors of the American Academy of Microbiology, the honorific arm of the American Society for Microbiology. He has received numerous honors including election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation; American Academy of Physicians; American Academy of Microbiology; Fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science; American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. He is an elected member of the Council for Foreign Relations. Casadevall was a featured expert guest on NPR station WYPR's RadioLab podcast 2020 episode "Fungus Amungus" as well as on "The Kingdom: How Fungi Made Our World," a 2018 documentary. Stephanie Desmon is a communications director at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an award-winning journalist. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and many other publications. Desmon also co-hosts Hopkins' Public Health on Call podcast.
Content
Preface
1. The Fungal Kingdom
2. From Germ Theory to "Magic" Mushrooms
3. The Age of Mammals (Thanks to Fungi?)
4. Fungi and Extinction
5. What Will the Fungi Unleash?
6. Are We Ready for This?
7. As Mysterious as They Are Alarming
Notes
Index
1. The Fungal Kingdom
2. From Germ Theory to "Magic" Mushrooms
3. The Age of Mammals (Thanks to Fungi?)
4. Fungi and Extinction
5. What Will the Fungi Unleash?
6. Are We Ready for This?
7. As Mysterious as They Are Alarming
Notes
Index