My research seeks to understand the biology and pathogenic mechanisms of human fungal pathogens. We are particularly interested in defining and characterizing the fungal and host factors that determine the extend of disease versus control of the infection. Most of our studies have been on the primary fungal pathogen, Histoplasma capsulatum, which invades and survives within respiratory phagocytes and thus our research encompasses both microbiology and host cell biology fields. We use molecular genetic approaches to create loss of function lines in both fungal and host cells. For phenotypic analysis, we employ both cell culture-based and animal models of infection. Our most recent investigations have described mechanisms of nutritional immunity imposed by host cells (i.e., restriction of available micronutrients such as iron and copper) and the fungal factors used to combat the host restriction. In addition we are using cellular and biochemical approaches to isolate Histoplasma-containing phagosomes of macrophages to support proteomics and metabolomics-based characterization of these host cell compartments.