Mahmoud A Ghannoum Author & Editor

Mahmoud A. Ghannoum, PhD, MBA, FIDSA, FAAM joined Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center in 1996 from prior positions at the UCLA School of Medicine and Kuwait University. Dr. Ghannoum has spent his entire academic career studying medically important fungi encompassing different fungal pathogens including Candida, Aspergillus, and Cryptococcus, the major causes of fungal infections. He has published more than 350 peer-reviewed articles addressing various aspects of superficial and systemic fungal infections. More recently, he published the first study describing the oral mycobiome of healthy individuals. He has published extensively in the area of fungal pathogenesis with special focus on virulence factors including phospholipase B, germination, adhesion, and biofilm formation, both in vitro and in vivo. Dr. Ghannoum is a professor and director of the Center for Medical Mycology at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center. This center of excellence, which he directs, is a multidisciplinary center that combines basic and translational research investigating fungi from the test tube to the bedside. He has performed several studies investigating the mechanisms underlying Candida pathogenesis. He is the recipient of the Freedom to Discover Award from Bristol- Myers Squibb and the Rhoda Benham Award from the Medical Mycological Society of the Americas. He served as a chairman of the Subcommittee on Antifungal Susceptibility Testing, Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute, and was selected as a "Most Interesting Person" by Cleveland Magazine in 2013. Dr. Ghannoum is an entrepreneur-scientist who has launched a number of companies focusing on the treatment of biofilm infections and microbial dysbiosis as it relates to gut health. He coined the term ‘Mycobiome’.

John R. Perfect, MD, is James B. Duke Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, a faculty member of the Duke University Interdisciplinary Program in Genetics, and director of the Duke University Mycology Research Unit. He is chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine at Duke Medical Center. Dr. Perfect is a diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine and American Board of Infectious Diseases. After receiving an undergraduate degree in biology from Wittenberg University, Dr. Perfect went on to receive a medical degree from the Medical College of Ohio at Toledo. He then completed an internship at the Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio; a residency in internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor; and a fellowship in infectious diseases at Duke University Medical Center. He is a fellow of the American Society for Microbiology and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Dr. Perfect is also a fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science and member of International Society for Human and Animal Mycology, and Immunocompromised Host Society (ISHAM). He is president of the Mycoses Study Group and Educational Research Consortium and president-elect of ISHAM. Dr. Perfect has served on numerous committees and advisory boards. He received the Rhoda Benham Award from Medical Mycology Society of the Americas and the Lucille Georg Award from ISHAM. Dr. Perfect’s research interests focus on the understanding of fungal pathogenesis through the study of Cryptococcus neoformans as well as clinical studies on the epidemiology, diagnosis, and management of invasive mycoses.