Associate ProfessorJulianne Djordjevic

Associate Professor Julie Djordjevic investigates how fungal pathogens survive within the human host.

Her group’s major research discoveries include characterization of the fungal phosphate acquisition signalling pathway and its role in allowing fungi to survive in the blood and spread from the primary infection site to the brain. Fungi use this strategy in their environmental niche to derive phosphate from complex sources and to make phosphate bioavailable for plants through symbiotic relationships.

Other findings include elucidation of the secretion pathway of another nutrient-acquiring enzyme called phospholipase B, that fungal cells adapt to host temperature stress via the Calcineurin-responsive transcription factor, Crz1 and, in collaboration with the Kmetzsch laboratory in Brazil, identification of the neuronal calcium sensor protein, Nsc1, as a calcineurin/Crz1 regulation target.

In a most recent study, her group characterised the phospholipase C-dependent inositol polyphosphate biosynthesis pathway and the role of one of its metabolic products in allowing the “switching-on” of the phosphate acquisition signalling pathway.