About AIDS

In many ways, research driven significantly by the AIDS epidemic benefits the public more than they ever realize. Another example of that was announced recently in the journal Science, when researchers reported the discovery of mating behavior in the yeast Candida albicans. That's right: a fungus having sex.

Why should we care what candida does in private? Well, we all have candida. It lives primarily in our intestinal tract, where it has a role in helping digest starchy foods. Sometimes candida gets out of control and grows in inappropriate quantities or places. It causes vaginal candidiasis (vaginal itch) in millions of women annually, and doesn't always respond well to treatment. For AIDS patients, it causes serious problems in the mouth, gut and bloodstream, which may result in death. If we could more effectively treat this fungus, women in general and people with AIDS would both be helped.

Candida was long thought to reproduce only by splitting itself in half. The recent discovery that it can reproduce sexually opens new opportunities for understanding how to interfere with it, i.e., how to control it and treat the medical conditions it causes.

Research on candida has plodded along for decades but wasn't seen as anything critical, since vaginal itch never killed anybody. However, AIDS-related conditions involving death have given a heightened sense of urgency to this area of study. In addition, understanding candida will probably also answer questions about another disease-causing fungus, cryptococcus. (Remember the Brushy Creek sewage spill?)

AIDS has been a black cloud for 20 years, but the research it impels has far-reaching payoff for us all.

(For details, see Science, 2000; 289:307-309, 310-312.)