Fungi that infect humans

In its short history of a century and a half, of which the last half-century brought the most dramatic advances, scientific medicine has found ways to cure or to treat millions of ill people who 200 years ago would have died early. Paradoxically, these successes of modern medicine have given rise to large groups of people at risk for fungal infections. Life-saving treatments may now breach normal immune functions, or susceptible patients such as premature newborns now survive long enough to become infected by a fungus. Invasive fungal infections have been very rare over most of our species' history (1), and the fungi that infect healthy humans are a small, if fascinating, group. Many more invasive fungal infections now occur in patients with an underlying serious illness.