Climate Change, Fungal Thermotolerance, and Emerging Infectious Disease: Where is the Maths?

• Date: Expected December 2026
• Location: TBD

Summary

Climate change is well known to impact on infectious disease risk, for example by expanding the range of arthropod vectors such as mosquitos or ticks. An additional risk is that a warming climate is likely to select for disease agents that can tolerate mammalian body temperatures, with a clear example being fungal pathogens. Although pathogenic fungi can cause a range of serious disease conditions in humans, these tend to be restricted to skin infections, where the conditions are slightly cooler than in the blood stream. This half-day interdisciplinary workshop will explore whether mathematical, statistical and computational approaches can help us understand the possible role of climate change in the emergence of thermotolerant fungal pathogens. The event will focus particularly on fungal thermotolerance and emerging pathogens such as Candidozyma auris. This species was described in 2009 but has since been reported to be causing hospital outbreaks world-wide. Curiously, distinct groups, akin to sub-species, emerged concurrently in across different continents, pointing to globally impacting driver, or set of drivers. The isolation of this species from wetlands points to a marine ecology, with increasing halotolerance (ability to withstand high salt concentrations) going hand-in-hand with thermotolerance. The role of intermediate reservoir hosts, particularly birds, in the global spread of C. auris is another important factor to consider, as well as the rise in antifungal resistance. We will consider possible mechanisms including gradual adaptation to higher temperatures and salt concentrations, selection following extreme weather events, population bottlenecks, and environmental pressures that may favour thermotolerant organisms (see ref)

The workshop will begin with an invited speaker who will set out the biological, clinical and/or evolutionary context. This will be followed by a structured sandpit-style discussion focused on identifying tractable research questions, relevant mathematical or computational approaches, and the types of data that would be needed to make progress.

The intended outcome is to identify one or more feasible collaborative research directions, potentially leading to a grant application, PhD project, or pilot modelling study.

Organisers and contact

Ed Feil (Life Sciences) and Ruth Bowness (Mathematical Sciences)

Contact: TBD

External event page

TBD