CIBER researchers are coordinating a new research network to study Pneumocystis infections.

Researchers from the Center for Biomedical Research (CIBER) Network are coordinating a new research network to study Pneumocystis disease, which continues to be a major public health problem, particularly in developing countries, with high morbidity and mortality among immunocompromised patients, mostly infected. HIV.

This European project, called “Delve-into-Pneumocystis”, is funded by the European Union’s COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) initiative and aims to develop effective measures against an infection that mainly affects immunocompromised people, such as HIV patients .

A network coordinated by Professor Enrique J. Calderon of the Faculty of Medicine, researcher responsible for the group of the Institute of Biomedicine of Seville (IBiS) “Clinical Epidemiology and Vascular Risk” and CIBER Public Health Researcher (CIBERESP), including CIBER teams from the fields of Bioengineering, Biomaterials and nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN), has the participation of more than 60 researchers from 17 countries.

These teams will join forces with hospitals, universities and companies in collaborations that will facilitate knowledge sharing across different sectors and advance new strategies for early diagnosis, treatment resistance and control of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.

This respiratory infection continues to be a public health problem, especially in developing countries where morbidity and mortality are high among people with weakened immune systems.

In developed regions, infection also persists among people with undiagnosed HIV who lack access to antiretroviral drugs or have problems adhering to chemoprophylaxis. Drug-resistant strains of Pneumocystis jirovecii have recently been discovered, creating a new problem that this initiative will seek to address.

On October 23, the first meeting of the Delve-into-Pneumocystis steering committee took place in Brussels (Belgium). There, initial research directions were established, emphasizing that interdisciplinary collaboration is key to developing innovative and practical solutions that improve the clinical management and prognosis of affected patients.

As reported in the project, today there is interest in ‘P. jiroveci’ extends beyond immunocompromised subjects, and increasing evidence suggests that we only know the tip of the iceberg of the manifestations that Pneumocystis infection can cause in humans. In this sense, primary Pneumocystis infection is associated with neonatal respiratory distress syndrome and bronchopulmonary dysplasia in infants and appears to play a role in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma.