UT Health San Antonio

Nathan P. Wiederhold, Pharm.D.

Professor- Director

Fungus Testing Laboratory

Dr. Wiederhold’s research is focused on trends in antifungal resistance, new mechanisms of drug resistance in fungi, and in the evaluation of novel agents under development for the treatment of invasive fungal infections. The Fungus Testing Laboratory is an international reference mycology laboratory with both clinical and research missions.  The lab’s research focuses on the preclinical evaluation of investigational therapeutic modalities and diagnostic technologies for the diagnosis and treatment of fungal infections.  This includes both in vitro assessment for activity against a wide range of fungal pathogens, including multi-drug resistant clinical isolates, and in vivo models of invasive fungal infections.  This work is supported through NIH/NIAID contracts and grants from industry, and they collaborate closely with other researchers in the Departments of Microbiology and Immunology, Medicine/Infectious Diseases, and Pathology in these studies. They also serve as the central mycology laboratory for several clinical trials and post-marketing studies.  The lab’s groups are also interested in evaluating antifungal susceptibility results to determine changes in resistance patterns and in the discovery of novel mechanisms of antifungal resistance.  Several new species of fungi have also been discovered by the laboratory in collaboration with other international mycology laboratories, both through morphologic/phenotypic assessment and phylogenetic analysis.