Research

The LeibUndGut-lab is interested in understanding how yeasts living on skin and mucosal tissues of humans and animals modulate the balance between health and disease. From our research we have learned how these commensal yeasts interact with the immune system to strengthen the defences at the body surfaces, which in turn ensure that the yeasts remain under control and do not cause disease.

Understanding these interconnections is important, given the high burden of disease caused by yeast and other fungi. Up to 25% of the worldwide population is affected by a fungal infection and >1.5 mio people die every year of an incurable fungal disease, with numbers rising.

• Homeostatic immunity controlling Candida albicans commensalism in the oral mucosa.

• Cutaneous immunity against the abundant skin commensal yeast Malassezia and its implications in heath and disease.

• Fungal virulence determinants at the interface between commensalism and infection

• Consequences of Malassezia colonization on skin homeostasis