Christina Hull

Position title: Professor

Phone: 608-265-5441

Address:
Biomolecular Chemistry and Medical Microbiology & Immunology
Fungal pathogen biology, eukaryotic development and differentiation, host-pathogen interactions, molecular mechanisms of infectious spore germination

Address: 5204B Biochemical Sciences Building, 440 Henry Mall
Education: Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco; Postdoctoral Fellowship, Duke University
Website: https://hulllab.bmolchem.wisc.edu/
Department: Biomolecular Chemistry and Medical Microbiology & Immunology
Research Fields: Disease biology, Cell biology, Gene expression, Genomics and proteomics, Yeast and other fungi

Research Description:
The Hull Lab focuses on the basic biology of human fungal pathogens. We use the meningitis-causing environmental fungus Cryptococcus as a model for our studies of fungal sexual development, spore germination, and fungal pathogenesis. Using biochemical, genetic, molecular, bioinformatic, and cell biological approaches, we are 1) determining the mechanisms by which Cryptococcus undergoes sexual development (assessing gene regulation, protein-DNA interactions, and transcriptional networks), 2) discovering the resistance, growth, and fundamental properties of spores (evaluating dormancy, germination, and cell differentiation), identifying and characterizing novel inhibitors of fungal pathways (carrying out high-throughput screening and drug development), and investigating how spores and yeast interact with host cells in culture and in vivo (parsing host-pathogen interactions and virulence pathways).

Representative Publications:
Search PubMed for more publications by Christina Hull

Ortiz, S.C. and C.M. Hull. 2024. Biogenesis, germination, and pathogenesis of Cryptococcus spores. Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews. 81(1):e0019623. PMCID: PMC10966950

Ortiz, S.C., M.C. McKeon, M.R. Botts, H. Gage, A.B. Frerichs, and C.M. Hull. Spores of the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus exhibit cell type-specific carbon source utilization during germination. bioRxiv 2023: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.01.560341

Huang, M. and C.M. Hull. 2017. Sporulation: How to survive on planet Earth (and beyond). Current Genetics 63(5):831-838. PMCID: PMC5647196

Walsh N.M., M.R. Botts, A.J. McDermott, S.C. Ortiz, M. Wuthrich, B.S. Klein, and C.M. Hull. 2019. Infectious particle identity determines dissemination and disease outcome for the inhaled human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus. PLoS Pathogens 15(6):e1007777. PMCID: PMC6597114

Ortiz, S.C., M. Huang, and C.M. Hull. 2019. Germination as a target for antifungal therapeutics. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 63(12):e00994-19. PMCID: PMC6879269

Ortiz, S.C., M. Huang, and C.M. Hull. 2021. Discovery of fungal-specific targets and inhibitors using chemical phenotyping of pathogenic spore germination. mBio 12(4):e0167221. PMCID: PMC8406298

Frerichs, A.B., M. Huang, S.C. Ortiz, and C.M. Hull. 2022. Methods for manipulating Cryptococcus spores. Journal of Fungi 8(1):4. PMCID: PMC8779225