西奥多·怀特博士是威尼斯人娱乐城科学与工程学院的系主任和Marion Merrell Dow教授，他最近获得了美国国立卫生研究院为期五年的396万美元的资助，用于研究美国的真菌感染。
Common fungal diseases in the United States include blood stream and lung diseases as well as athlete’s foot, vaginal yeast infections and oral thrush. 多年来，这些感染的数量一直在增加，并在全球蔓延，血液、脑和肺部真菌感染的死亡率达到50%或更高。 目前缺乏美国真菌感染数量的数据，以及与社会经济地位的相关性，阻碍了对气候变化和极端气候事件对这些真菌感染的作用的更深入了解。 White’s research aims to change that.
“Over the last 10 years, we have been seeing increasing fungal infections, as well as significant climate changes,” White says. “Our grant will try to determine if there is a correlation between the two.” he said.
怀特和他的团队将使用一个新的数据库来更好地估计美国每年真菌感染的数量和类型。 The database can track information from the last 15 years or more to examine the role of socioeconomic status of de-identified patients with these fungal infections, and determine if there is a correlation between those infections and climate change or extreme weather events.
This project is a collaboration among the University of Missouri Kansas City, University of California, Berkeley and Children’s Mercy Kansas City.