New Antifungal Drugs

Fungal pathogens have a devastating impact on human health. Treatment of life-threatening fungal infections is notoriously challenging, due in part to the limited number of effective antifungal drugs, issues with host toxicity, and the emergence and spread of drug resistance in pathogen populations. There is an urgent need for new antifungal drugs to treat infectious caused by these eukaryotic pathogens, which share many conserved cellular regulators with their human hosts. This Research Topic will cover a broad continuum of subjects that are fundamental to this grand challenge. Current treatment strategies, challenges, and unmet medical needs in resource-available and resource-limited health care systems will be established. Approaches for antifungal discovery will be explored, including phenotypic screening of compound collections, natural products and synthetic compound libraries in drug discovery, structure-enabled drug design, leveraging drug combinations, and harnessing genomic approaches to drug target discovery and identification of targets of bioactive molecules. Distinct types of antifungal targets will be covered, such as essential proteins and those required for virulence, and the relative merits of broad spectrum antifungals versus more species-selective agents will be examined. This Research Topic will cover new antifungal targets and leads in various stages of development, the transition from discovery science to commercial drug development, and clinical trial design for new antifungals, with reference to regulatory hurdles, endpoints, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and diagnostics. A crucial perspective in maintaining the efficacy of antifungals is an exploration of the evolution of antifungal drug resistance, the emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogens, and the link between the widespread use of antifungals in agriculture and the emergence of resistance in the clinic. This Research Topic will bring together diverse disciplines to advance the field and accelerate the development of much needed resistance-evasive therapeutics for the treatment of life-threatening fungal infections.

Topic Editor Leah E. Cowen is the co-founder and shareholder in Bright Angel Therapeutics and received financial support from Amplyx, Boragen, and Lallemand Health Solution

Topic Editor Maurizio del Poeta is co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of MicroRid Technologies Inc. Received financial support from MicroRid, has shares, and holds patents.

Topic Editor John Perfect received financial support from with Pfizer, Matinas, F2G, Amplyx, Appili, Astellas, Merck, Minnetronix, and Scynexis and he is consulting for them.

The other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regard to the Research Topic subject.