Valley Fever Collaborative awarded $3.1M in research funds

This study will try to connect the dots between strains that cause people to get sick, where in the land they come from  and what it is about those hot spots that makes the fungus thrive. With this new information, we might prevent infections at work sites or even for everyone who lives here. "Six individual projects will take place using a Regents ' Grant funded by the state ' s Technology and Research Initiative Fund. They are:Identifying Valley fever hotspots from genetic clusters in patient specimensGalgiani will lead a team of researchers seeking to determine to what degree Valley fever human infections are due to hotspots in the environment in Arizona by investigating genetically coccidioidal isolates from infected patients in relation to environmental sequences and identifying genetic clusters.Toward a predictive model of  Coccidioides hot spots and hot moments on the Arizona landscape: characteristics and dynamics of soils harboring Valley feverLed by  Jon Chorover, professor and head of the  Department of Environmental Science at theCollege of Agriculture and Life Sciences, researchers will combine soil sampling and laboratory geochemical, mineralogical and physical analyses with sensor array data from research sites. The goals are to identify soil characteristics most frequently associated with high prevalence of  Coccidioides spores and determine the soil and ambient atmospheric conditions that promote the aerosolized suspension and movement of Coccidioide...
Source: The University of Arizona: Health - Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Source Type: research