Pete successfully defended his thesis and is now PhDone!
On Friday, October 18, Pete gave his public seminar before defending his thesis. This portion of the defense was heavily attended and there were even more joining by Zoom, a testament to Pete's friendly nature, always going out of his way to help others. During this seminar, he only presented one part of his dissertation, titled "Deciphering the intracellular niche of Cryptococcus neoformans in alveolar macrophages" since he did much more than that. Some of that is published already, but there are two more papers on the works, so stay tuned!
Pete's main work was the characterization of the 'cryptococcal-containing phagosome' in broad cell biological terms. He did this in both human and murine cell lines as well as in primary murine macrophages. He also worked on a vacuolar mutant of Cryptococcus, work that involved several undergraduates over the years.
Here are Pete's papers (some are still in the works, so will update as they come out):
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The catheterized bladder environment promotes Efg1- and Als1-dependent Candida albicans infection.
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Fungal mechanisms of intracellular survival: what can we learn from bacterial pathogens?
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Lack of an atypical PDR transporter generates an immunogenic Cryptococcus neoformans strain that drives a dysregulated and lethal immune response in murine lungs (preprint at bioRxiv).