Courses
Dear Friends of the Atlas,
We often hear the complaint that the Atlas of Clinical Fungi is such a difficult book. Can’t you make it a bit more simple, for example, limit it to the most important pathogens? No, we can’t. The idea and unique selling point of the Atlas is that everything can be found – like a database, but in the form of a book, edited by real people and not by a robot. There are lots of fungi, there is enormous diversity in phylogeny and infection strategies, and the result is big and complex. But isn’t it nice to find what stunning fungus is behind the infection in the leukemic patient described by Kinch et al. (2023): see the page on Peziza ostracoderma. Consult also the page on the genus Peziza, to see what kind of exceptional opportunist is concerned, and where it can be found in the environment. Another beauty is the recently added mucoralean fungus Mycotypha microspora, repeatedly reported from gastrointestinal infections in compromised patients (Guddati et al., 2019; Trachuk et al., 2018; Lacroix et al., 2007).
Another unique feature of the Atlas is that the book is continually updated via its website. Recent additions include strange fungi such as Choanephora or Ophidiomyces, but also new pathogens in Aspergillus, Trichophyton, and Trichosporon. Since recently, the additions are dated, so if you want to see what’s new, use the search term, for example, ‘update AND 2025’ in Global search, and you will find all pages where something has been changed in 2025.
The Atlas is organized according to broad relationships between fungi, in accordance with their infection strategies, and that may be unfamiliar to most clinicians. Therefore we organize regular courses in medical mycology, to explain the Atlas – or vice versa the Atlas can be used as course manual. Last month we enjoyed a very successful course at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, U.S.A., for 65 clinicians from North America and abroad. The next edition is scheduled April 2025 in Jining, China, followed in November 2025 by Recife in Brazil, and January 2026 in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and thereafter we will go to the U.S.A. again. Courses are always didactic so that no specialized pre-knowledge is required. The major part consists of lectures, but additionally the fungi will be shown in hands-on sessions. Courses are between 5 and 9 days long and are adapted to the local situation. Information will timely be displayed on the Atlas website.
Target audience:
* Physicians, clinicians, dermatologists, and trainees,
* Clinical microbiology laboratory directors/consultants,
* Laboratory technicians,
* Clinical laboratory and fundamental scientists,
* PhD students and postdoctoral researchers,
* Scientists in industry or pharmaceutical companies.
The following topics will be covered:
Overview of the fungal Kingdom, major clinical and veterinary fungal diseases, methods of identification and diagnostics, fungal nomenclature, microscopy of clinical samples and culture, molecular diagnostics, antifungal susceptibility testing, novel therapeutics, infection-prevention.
References
Guddati H, Andrade C, Muscarella P, Hertan H (2019). An unusual cause of massive upper gastrointestinal bleeding-gastric mucormycosis. Oxford Med Case Rep 2019: omy135.
Kinch A, Furebring M, Chryssanthou E, Hallböök H (2023). Invasive fungal infection by Peziza ostracoderma in an immunocompromised patient. Med Mycol Case Rep 39: 26−30.
Lacroix C, Leblanc T, Feuilhade de Chauvin M (2007). Isolation of Mycotypha microspora from stool samples of a leukemic child. J Mycol Méd 17: 188−190.
Trachuk P, Szymczak WA, Muscarella P, Sarwar UN (2018). A case of invasive gastrointestinal Mycotypha infection in a patient with neutropenia. Case Rep Infecti Dis 2: 2018:5864175.
