Advances Against Aspergillosis - Rome 2010

The fourth Advances Against Aspergillosis meeting is drawing to a close in Rome and has been the most successful yet, building on the rapid progress this meeting has made since 2004. The numbers attending has risen from 200 in 2004 to well over 500 at this meeting with nearly 200 posters presented.

The purpose of the meeting this year is as always to act as a forum for interaction between researchers and clinicians in order to improve communication between the different type of workers and therefore to improve efforts to advance diagnosis and treatment of these illnesses.

The Aspergillus Website are assisting this process by hosting all the abstracts from the meeting and as many of the slide presentations we can get permission to use - in this way we hope many more people will be able to understand the breadth and depth of the subjects covered.

In addition this year there was a meeting for patients in which patients participated from many countries alongside notable experts in several fields. This meeting was a great success, the talks (written and presented so that they can be understood by 'ordinary' people rather than scientists and medics) have been recorded and will be available online in a few weeks.

Aspergillosis Meeting for Patients - Rome

The Fungal Research Trust sponsored a meeting prior to the Advances Against Aspergillosis meeting on 3rd February 2010, which was devoted to translating the latest medical and scientific information in this field into presentations that could be given to patients to enhance their understanding of their illness. There were question & answer sessions between each talk so that patients could get answers direct from the speaker, supplemented by questions submitted prior to the conference from interested patients who could not travel to Rome.

At the end of the day there was excellent food & drink to enable informal chats between all participants which propogated many useful discussions between patients, doctors and nurses.

All talks and Q & A sessions were video recorded and will be made available in a few weeks on the Aspergillus website. Available sooner will be written summaries of each talk.

New antifungal leaps its lastest hurdle

Basel, Switzerland, January 29, 2010 - Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd. (SIX:BSLN) announces that based on a futility analysis of the isavuconazole phase III trial for the treatment of invasive Aspergillus infections, the Independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (IDSMB) has recommended the continuation of the study.

Isavuconazole is the latest in the long line of 'azole'-type antifungals to be developed. Of the earlier azoles some have difficulty in absorption for some people (itraconazole - Sporanox) or have quite severe side effects such as light sensitivity (voriconazole - Vfend). This latest drug has test results that indicate that it is superior in these respects to its predecessors, but this is based on laboratory and trials in quite small number of people.

This announcement does not mean that any of the prospective advantages of this drug have been proved or even whether or not it is better than the drug it is being compared with (voriconazole) - that is the end point of this trial and this is a 'mid-point' assessment which checks to overall results without knowing who is taking which drug. This is simply a statement that the drug has not had any major problems or unexpected issues during the first part of the trial and that the trial can continue. If some patients had been found who had major health problems the trial would have been stopped to prevent any further cases.

The trial will now go ahead with recruitment and treatment with the aim of completing as soon as possible in the hope of providing another useful antifungal to use in the battle against fungal infections.

Controlling insect numbers using fungi

Some insects are a health hazard to humans or are a threat to human food supplies. Controlling the numbers of insects is a high priority and the possibility of using fungi is being investigated.
Aspergillus is a known pathogen of some of these important insects e.g. mosquito, cockroach and locust so it is feasible that judicious use of Aspergillus could be developed into an important weapon against our tiny enemies.

One of the problems to be overcome before Aspergillus could be used in this way is how to safely infect large numbers of insects or their larvae (which live in water). Given that some species of Aspergillus are themselves pathogenic and/or poisonous to humans it wouldn't be a good idea to simply adopt a widespread air dispersal, so alternative options are being considered.

This paper investigates several factors that influence the mortality of insect larvae after treatment with fungal spores and found that the number of larvae killed were dependant of several factors (species of fungus, larval stage of the insect, density of larvae and nutrient availability) but not dependant on concentration of fungal spores applied (due to clumping together of the spores on the surface of the water) or the time of exposure of the insects to the spores. Better methods for ensuring an even spread of spores across the surface of the water the larvae were growing in was called for.

This study on fully grown mosquitoes addresses the need to avoid spraying fungal spores into the air, and instead tries to make progress on how to infect flying insects when they come to rest by coating the surface they land on with spores. Methods that used a particular solvent (Evaporative Shellsol T solvent) and a 'K-bar' stainless steel coating bar was found to be optimal for the purpose of coating paper in such a way that insects landing on the paper were given an effective dose of spores.
The coated paper achieved a consistent result and thus provides a tool that can be used to achieve comparable results between different labs throughout the world.

The Aspergillosis Patients Meeting, Rome 2010

The Fungal Research Trust are holding a meeting designed for people who have aspergillosis or people with an interest in aspergillosis in Rome on 3rd February 2010.

The program consists of the following talks:

How important is Aspergillus in cystic fibrosis?: Rick Moss, Stanford
Aspergillus and CGD: Brahm Segal, Buffalo
Chronic pulmonary aspergillosis: David Denning, Manchester
Why is invasive aspergillosis such a difficult disease to diagnose and treat?: Ben de Pauw, Nijmegen

Steroids, Aspergillus and antifungals: Russell Lewis, Houston
Surgery for aspergilloma and invasive aspergillosis: Gilbert Massard, Strasbourg
Getting antifungal drug levels right - why does it matter?: David Andes, Madison WI
How can I clean up my environment at home?: Malcolm Richardson, Manchester

Full program

Any patients or other interested parties who wish to attend can still register by going to the following link: Registration & Full details of meeting

If you have a question for one of our experts please send us an email and we will try to get you an answer if time allows