New ISHAM Course: Application of Fungal Diagnostics in Clinical Scenarios

Welcome to the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology (ISHAM) course, Application of Fungal Diagnostics in Clinical Scenarios. This is a companion resource to the ISHAM Diagnostic Mycology Course.

The course consists of 5 cases representing diagnostic decision making in a range of patient types as outlined below. You may select and review the patient types relevant to your practice. Participants who pass the final course exam covering all cases will receive a certificate from ISHAM recognizing their completion of the course.

The course is aimed at anyone who would like to deepen their understanding of fungal diagnostics.

The case types include diagnostic challenges related to IFIs occurring in the following host types:

• Pediatrics
  Dr Alida Fe Talento
• Hematology Oncology/Stem Cell Transplant
  Dr Joy Sarojini Michael
• Intensive Care Unit
  Dr Rita Oladele
• HIV (histoplasmosis)
  Drs Beatriz L. Gómez and Angela M. Tobón
• Solid Organ Transplantation
  Dr Barbara Alexander

 We thank Dr H. Ruth Ashbee for chairing this initiative.  We also wish to thank Ms Uliana Isbell Biryukova for program assistance as well as Dr Lisa Tushla and Ms Hillary O’Connor for editorial assistance.

Chairperson

Ruth Ashbee, PhD

Honorary Principal Clinical Scientist, Mycology Reference Center, Leeds, UK
Visiting Lecturer in the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Leeds
Chair, British Society for Medical Mycology Therapeutic Drug Monitoring Guidelines Working Party
Fellow of the European Confederation of Medical Mycology
Leeds, United Kingdom

Dr Ashbee is currently the founder and Managing Director of Empeiros Ltd, a company that provides training and scientific services. She is an honorary principal clinical scientist at the Mycology Reference Centre in Leeds, United Kingdom and a Visiting Lecturer in the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Leeds. She completed her Bachelor of Science and her Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology/Immunology at the University of Leeds. She is an experienced medical mycologist who has worked in the NHS for over 15 years, where she provided liaison between the diagnostic laboratory and clinical services. Her interest and expertise lies in diagnosis of invasive fungal disease, antifungals, therapeutic drug monitoring of antifungals, and infections in haemato-oncology patients. She has lectured in various universities in the UK and abroad and delivered mycology training courses for over 25 years. Dr Ashbee developed the ISHAM Course in Diagnostic Medical Mycology and is a former ISHAM Vice President and coordinator of ISHAM working groups.

Dr Ashbee is passionate about delivering teaching and training in mycology and has taught a wide range of groups in clinical, academic, and professional settings, using varied methods including lecture-based teaching, practical courses, and case studies.

Faculty

Barbara Alexander, MD

Vice Chief of Transplant/Immunocompromised Host Infectious Diseases Services
Head of Clinical Mycology Laboratory
Professor of Medicine and Pathology
Duke University School of Medicine
Durham, North Carolina, USA

Dr Alexander is Professor of Medicine and Pathology, Vice-Chief of Transplant/Immunocompromised Host Infectious Disease (ID) Services, and Head of the Clinical Mycology Laboratory at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Dr Alexander served as President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) in 2020-21 and as Chair of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute Subcommittee on Antifungal Tests from 2014-17.  Her research over the years has focused on the prevention and diagnosis of fungal infections, particularly in the immunocompromised host population. Her efforts have contributed to standardized methods for susceptibility testing and interpretive breakpoints and epidemiologic cutoff values for fungi, FDA approval of new diagnostic tests and antifungal agents, as well as pivotal national epidemiologic investigations of fungal disease in transplant and immunocompromised host populations.

Dr Alexander has lectured nationally and internationally; authored over 200 articles, book chapters, white papers and publications for mass distribution; and is considered a thought leader in the field of medical mycology and transplant infectious diseases.

Beatriz L. Gómez, PhD

Professor, School of Medicine
Universidad del Rosario
Bogotá, Colombia

Dr. Gómez is a Professor at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario in Colombia and is the director of the group Studies in Translational Microbiology and Emerging Diseases (MICROS) Research Group, at the same university. She obtained her PhD in Medical Mycology in King´s College, University of London, worked as postdoctoral fellow at King´s and University College London and the Royal Free Hospital with a Wellcome Trust career development grant. Dr Gómez worked for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, where she led the Mycotic Diseases Diagnostic Development Unit. Her interest and research focus on the diagnosis and characterization of human pathogenic fungi, and much of her work has been on histoplasmosis and other mycoses caused by pathogenic dimorphic fungi and on opportunistic fungal infections. She has led and participated in multi-center studies that aim to develop and validate methods (immunological and molecular) to better diagnose fungal diseases and specially those affecting the immunocompromised host.

Rita Oladele, PhD

Clinical Microbiologist
Associate Professor and Clinical Consultant at University of Lagos and Lagos University Teaching Hospital
Fellow of the European Confederation of Medical Mycology
Fellow of the Royal College of Pathology
Chair of Pan Africa Mycology Working Group
Lagos, Nigeria

Dr Oladele, a clinical microbiologist, obtained her PhD from the University of Manchester, UK, in 2018. Her key research interests are invasive fungal infections, critical illness, and advanced HIV disease (AHD). Dr Oladele has been instrumental in mapping the epidemiology of invasive fungal infections in Nigeria. With a grant from NW Lung Centre Charity, she successfully conducted a 9-site Histoplasma skin sensitivity survey in 2016 (900 participants). She was the principal investigator in a 14-site cryptococcal antigen screening survey (1400 participants) and facilitated the training of over 750 health care providers (HCPs) in Nigeria on the screening, diagnosis, and management of cryptococcal disease in 2018 (funded by CDC Foundation). This training drew the attention of the National Ministry of Health to the knowledge gap in histoplasmosis in AHD, and she was appointed a member of the National Task Team on AHD in Nigeria, tasked with developing a package of care for this group of patients. She also conducted a 10-site study to ascertain the true burden of histoplasmosis in Nigeria (1100 AHD patients); this study was the first prospective study on histoplasmosis in AHD patients in Africa.

Dr Oladele co-authored the 2018 ECMM MSG Global guidelines on mucormycosis and COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis as well as the 2020 ECMM/ISHAM consensus criteria for research and clinical guidance. Dr Oladele also co-authored the current cryptococcal meningitis guidelines and the WHO fungal diseases priority pathogens list. Her laboratory diagnosed the first six cases of C auris bloodstream infections in Nigeria. Dr Oladele is passionate about the field of AHD and is a member of the global AHD Alliance led by the WHO. She has driven education on suspicion and diagnosis in the at-risk groups in Nigeria, by hosting fora for training clinicians and laboratory scientists. This culminated  in establishing a Medical Mycology Society in Nigeria, with membership strength of 92 multidisciplinary HCPs, of which she is the President. With support from other African experts, she set up the Pan African Mycology Working Group (PAMWG), affiliated to ISHAM, of which she is Chair. Dr Oladele has authored/co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed papers. She was admitted as a Fellow of the European Confederation of Medical Mycology in 2018 and became a fellow of the Royal College of Pathology in 2022. Her current primary role is Associate Professor and consultant clinical microbiologist at the University of Lagos and Lagos University Teaching Hospital.

Joy Sarojini Michael, MD FRCPath

Professor & Clinical Microbiologist
Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India
Vice Chair of Tamil Nadu State TB Task Force Committee
Tamil Nadu, India

Dr. Michael is a clinical microbiologist with 22 years of experience in medical microbiology, with a special focus on diagnostic research, especially in the areas of mycobacteriology and mycology. She has conducted research in the area of tuberculosis (TB), including evaluations of new diagnostics in tuberculosis in adults and children; molecular epidemiology of TB, including drug-resistant and zoonotic forms; as well as the molecular epidemiology of non-tuberculosis mycobacteria. In the field of mycology, her areas of interest are in the field of molecular diagnostics in invasive fungal infections, molecular epidemiology, virulence mechanisms, and drug resistance of fungal pathogens like Mucorales as well as Cryptococcus, Candida, and Aspergillus spp.

Dr Michael received her medical degree in microbiology from the Christian College in Vellore. She received her FRCPath at Barts and the London NHS trust, in London, UK. She has held leadership roles with the National TB Elimination Program and the Tamil Nadu State TB Task Force. She has been the Biosafety Officer of the Institution and served as the secretary of the infection prevention control committees for over 15 years.

Alida Fe Talento, MD

Researcher and Consultant Microbiologist at Children’s Health Ireland
Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Department of Clinical Microbiology, Trinity College Dublin
Honorary Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology at the Royal College of Surgeons
Dublin, Ireland  

Dr Talento graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree from the UERM Medical Centre in the Philippines as a qualified paediatrician and paediatric infectious diseases specialist. She moved to Ireland in 2003, where she undertook further paediatric training and higher specialist training in clinical microbiology. During her higher specialist training years, Dr Talento obtained her Doctor in Medicine degree from Trinity College, Dublin based on her research on invasive fungal disease in critical care patients.  This research work has fueled her interest in clinical mycology, leading to further projects relating to invasive fungal diseases such as candidiasis and aspergillosis, antifungal stewardship, and antifungal resistance. Dr Talento is a member of the working group that published the Irish national guidelines on the prevention of nosocomial aspergillosis during construction and renovation works in 2018 and recently joined the Healthcare Infection Society Working group on the prevention of hospital-acquired mould infections.

Dr Talento is the principal investigator of a project entitled “Invasive fungal disease and antifungal stewardship in paediatric haematology-oncology patients in Ireland (Fungi-HOPe project).” She is also a member of the multinational group of researchers on antifungal resistance called INFORM-AFR and country lead coordinator for a JPI-AMR project entitled “Bridging the gap between environment and the patient (GAP-AFR),” which aims to develop strategies for surveillance of A fumigatus and investigate the risk of transmission of antifungal resistance.

Angela M. Tobón, MD

Lecturer-Investigator
Institution of Tropical Medicine
Universidad CES
Medellín, Colombia

Dr Tobón is a lecturer-investigator at the Colombian Institution of Tropical Medicine, Universidad CES in Medellín Colombia. She graduated from the Universidad de Antioquia, in Medellín, Colombia. Subsequently, she practiced internal medicine at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín, Colombia. She received a doctorate honoris causa in Health Sciences at the Universidad CES in 2022. Dr Tobón has over 92 publications on infectious diseases topics such as tuberculosis, HIV infection, mycoses, and tropical diseases. She has lectured on these topics at over 120 national and international conferences.

Computer System Requirements

To participate, you will need access to a computer (either MAC or PC), tablet, or smart phone, with a Chrome (version 22.0.1229.94 or greater) web browser, Firefox (version 3.6 or greater) web browser or an Internet Explorer (version 8.0 or greater) web browser, JavaScript enabled, connected to the Internet (high speed connection preferred).

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