odanny
Diamond Member
I'm wondering if anyone has watched this and if it is any good. Season 2 premieres tonight on HBO. Sounds pretty interesting, might be worth a month to watch this.
As Season 2 premieres, the characters in HBO’s “The Last of Us” have been battling a deadly fungus for 25 years and counting. It makes for good storytelling, but how difficult is it to make an effective fungal antibiotic or vaccine in real life?
They tried in the television show, sort of. At the end of Season 1,
But Rex said the timeline on the show would allow for the development of a worthy vaccine, comparable to a world without zombies. The second season takes place about 25 years after the initial outbreak. In the real world, scientists are on the verge of creating the first fungal vaccine for humans after more than a decade of research.
In our non-zombie-fighting world, between 1.5 million and 5 million fungi species populate the planet. But only a few hundred make people sick. Those select few, though, can be hard to fight off and can become deadly — killing more people than malaria or tuberculosis.
Treatments are difficult, experts say. Only a handful of antifungal drug classes exist, and many fatal fungi aren’t responsive to them. The fungi also build resistance over time to the few drugs that are available.
“One of the reasons there’s so few antifungals is because fungi are quite closely related to humans,” said Leah Cowen, a mycologist at the University of Toronto. “It’s very challenging to develop drugs that kill the fungus without causing severe side effects in the host.”
Most people are familiar with topical fungal issues like ringworm or athlete’s foot, but the spores cause real trouble when certain species enter our bodies — as demonstrated in the fictional television show, and in real life.
The creators of “The Last of Us” commandeered a fungus called Cordyceps as the scientific villain. It invades the characters, proliferates and eventually overtakes their brains. It looks like threads wiggling their way through bodies.
WaPo
As Season 2 premieres, the characters in HBO’s “The Last of Us” have been battling a deadly fungus for 25 years and counting. It makes for good storytelling, but how difficult is it to make an effective fungal antibiotic or vaccine in real life?
They tried in the television show, sort of. At the end of Season 1,
doctors and nurses want to cut into the brain of the snark-tastic wonder kid, Ellie, to understand why she seems to be immune to the deadly fungus and to ultimately create a vaccine. But hardened softy Joel goes on a murderous rampage to save the recent daughter figure in his life, supposedly obliterating any hope of finding a cure.
But Rex said the timeline on the show would allow for the development of a worthy vaccine, comparable to a world without zombies. The second season takes place about 25 years after the initial outbreak. In the real world, scientists are on the verge of creating the first fungal vaccine for humans after more than a decade of research.
The real fungal brain infection spreading in humans
In our non-zombie-fighting world, between 1.5 million and 5 million fungi species populate the planet. But only a few hundred make people sick. Those select few, though, can be hard to fight off and can become deadly — killing more people than malaria or tuberculosis.
Treatments are difficult, experts say. Only a handful of antifungal drug classes exist, and many fatal fungi aren’t responsive to them. The fungi also build resistance over time to the few drugs that are available.
“One of the reasons there’s so few antifungals is because fungi are quite closely related to humans,” said Leah Cowen, a mycologist at the University of Toronto. “It’s very challenging to develop drugs that kill the fungus without causing severe side effects in the host.”
Most people are familiar with topical fungal issues like ringworm or athlete’s foot, but the spores cause real trouble when certain species enter our bodies — as demonstrated in the fictional television show, and in real life.
The creators of “The Last of Us” commandeered a fungus called Cordyceps as the scientific villain. It invades the characters, proliferates and eventually overtakes their brains. It looks like threads wiggling their way through bodies.
WaPo
