Worldwide human fungal diseases are on the rise. Patients with severe fungal infections usually require life-long chemotherapy with current clinical drugs. Development of better chemotherapies and preventive vaccination has become an urgent task to combat fungal infections.
Research in Dr. Hung's laboratory focuses on host-fungus interactions and anti-microbial immunity. My laboratory has the expertise, instruments, and infrastructure to provide multidisciplinary training opportunities to students who are interested in immune mechanisms against microbial infection, vaccine development and discovery of novel fungal chemotherapies.
Characterization of Protective Immunity and Vaccine Development
Dr. Hung's laboratory has taken an immune-proteomic/bioinformatics approach to identify fungal antigens that can be used for the development of vaccines and diagnosis tools. They also characterize various experimental adjuvants that stimulate a protective T cell-mediated immunity against microbial infections. Moreover, vaccine efficacy and protective mechanisms are evaluated and deciphered in humanized and specific gene deletion strains of mice.
Development of Rapid Screening Methods for Drug Discovery
Dr. Hung's laboratory applies a high-content cytological profiling method using an image cytometry technique to identify novel compounds against medically-important fungi.
