CANDIDA INVASION OF ENDOTHELIUM AND VIRULENCE

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The purpose of this research project is to study the interactions of the fungus, Candida albicans, with endothelial cells. These cells form the inner lining of the blood vessels. The long-range goal of this research is to understand how C. albicans invades and damages these cells so that methods to block this process can be developed. This work is important because the mortality of patients with a disseminated candidal infection is approximately 40%, even with currently available therapy. For the proposed studies, the endothelial cells will be harvested from the veins within human umbilical cords and grown in tissue culture. The umbilical cords will be obtained after normal vaginal births from uninfected donors. No information about the mother or baby will be collected. The donors of the cords will not be identified and the umbilical cord blood will not be collected.