Scientists at the University of Georgia are winners of the 2025 Gizmodo Science Fair for their research into a potential fungus-fighting vaccine for protection against deadly and common fungal infections.
The question
Can we ever proactively defend ourselves from fungi, including those that cause yeast infections?
The results
In a study this June, the researchers’ NXT-2 vaccine appeared to protect mice from a common culprit of vaginal yeast infection, Candida albicans. The team’s earlier research found that NXT-2 was also able to prevent or reduce harm in mice exposed to three of the most common kinds of invasive and life-threatening fungal infections in people. These three groups of fungi alone account for around 80% of such infections.
Why they did it
Compared to viruses and bacteria, humanity is simply less equipped to deal with fungi. We have far fewer antifungals than antibiotics, for instance, and exactly zero approved vaccines to date. Fungi are becoming more resistant to the limited therapies available today, but the team’s research could tip the balance back in our favor.
“One of the reasons why we need a vaccine, in addition to this increasing and enormous clinical burden, is that for a lot of these fungal infections, there’s an increasing frequency of drug resistance,” project leader Karen Norris told Gizmodo. “We and others think that there needs to be a different strategy, and it can’t just be chasing more antifungal drugs.”
Why they’re a winner
NXT-2 is a recombinant protein-based vaccine. It’s intended to train our immune system to recognize a protein sequence found in a wide variety of fungal germs long before they ever infect us. So NXT-2 isn’t just promising because it could be one of the first fungal vaccines ever made, but because it could help protect us from the most medically relevant fungi around—a pan-fungal vaccine, in other words.
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