FABI hosted the first CryptoADAPT workshop from 31 August to 2 September, bringing together researchers from FABI, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and Stellenbosch University in South Africa, Imperial College London in the UK, Duke University in the USA, the University of Zambia, and the Manhiça Health Research Centre in Mozambique. CryptoADAPT is a Wellcome Trust funded project, led by Dr Serisha Naicker (NICD), investigating how Cryptococcus species adapt to environmental stressors on their way to becoming human pathogens, a group responsible for around 15% of AIDS related deaths worldwide.

Over three days, participants trained in the full workflow from field to laboratory: sampling environmental substrates on the University of Pretoria campus, including beetle associated sampling, then processing, culturing and triaging yeast isolates, and finally identifying them through ITS barcoding. Sessions also covered metadata standards, culture-independent metabarcoding approaches, and how to implement the workflow across South Africa, Zambia and Mozambique.

Nine participants then travelled to the Mapungubwe National Park from 3-6 September to apply the workflow in the field. The CryptoADAPT team now looks forward to isolating many more Cryptococcus species as the project continues across all three countries, with further workshops planned.