Tobias M. Hohl honoured for work on Aspergillus fumigatus

Tobias M. Hohl is honored for his research on the interaction of Aspergillus fumigatus and the pulmonary innate immune system. Hohl earned his M.D.- Ph.D. from the tri-institutional program of Weill Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Rockefeller University, New York. While a Research Fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Hohl studied chemokine induction and signaling pathways in macrophages exposed to A. fumigatus. He learned that Dectin-1, a receptor expressed on dendritic cells and macrophages, binds β-glucans on the surface of germinating A. fumigatus conidia. Hohl showed that β-glucans are expressed in state-specific fashion on geminating A. fumigatus, thereby, restricting the inflammatory response to germinating but not dormant fungal spores.

His work demonstrated for the first time how the mammalian immune system recognizes Aspergillus infections; it was published in PLoS Pathogen.