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Combinational Antifungal Therapy and Recent Trends in Drug Discovery

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Combating Fungal Infections

Abstract

Invasive fungal infections are a major problem in immunocompromised patients. This has necessitated an increased interest in the development of new antifungals to treat these life-threatening infections. However, our means of combating fungal infections are still lagging behind those for bacterial infections, due to toxicity and the lower clinical efficacy of available antifungals against some invasive fungal infection. Thus, more efforts are needed in antifungal drug discovery, as well as in developing effective ways of minimizing toxicity and improving delivery of available antifungal drugs. One approach is the effective use of newer antifungal agents in combination therapy against invasive aspergillosis, cryptococcosis and candidiasis. On the other hand, identifying and validating new antifungal drug targets is a prerequisite for new antifungal drug discovery. These new targets might be discovered by both conventional but improved assays and genomic approaches. Also, targeting virulence is expected to be a new paradigm for antifungals. In this chapter, an attempt is made to describe recent progress in combinational therapy and new approaches to antifungal drug discovery.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Microbiology, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, UP, 202002, India

    Iqbal Ahmad, Mohd Sajjad Ahmad Khan & Maryam Zahin

  2. Interdisciplinary Biotechnology Unit, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, UP, 202002, India

    Mohd Owais

  3. Department of Microbiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, UP, 202002, India

    Mohd Shahid

  4. Himalaya Drug Company, Dehradun, India

    Zafar Mehmood

  5. Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, Lucknow, UP, India

    Aditya Bhushan Pant

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  1. Iqbal Ahmad
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  4. Mohd Owais
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  7. Aditya Bhushan Pant
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Correspondence to Iqbal Ahmad .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fac. Agricultural Sciences, Dept. Agricultural Microbiology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, 202002, India

    Iqbal Ahmad

  2. Dept. Biochemistry, Interdiciplinary Biotechnology Unit, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, 202 002, India

    Mohammad Owais

  3. J. N. Medical College, Dept. Microbiology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, 202002, India

    Mohammed Shahid

  4. James Graham Brown Cancer Center, S. Preston Street 580, Louisville, 40202, USA

    Farrukh Aqil

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Ahmad, I. et al. (2010). Combinational Antifungal Therapy and Recent Trends in Drug Discovery. In: Ahmad, I., Owais, M., Shahid, M., Aqil, F. (eds) Combating Fungal Infections. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12173-9_10

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