Zombies aren’t real – but fungal health threats are: U of T’s Leah Cowen on CBC Radio

“They're the only organisms that are causing extinctions in real time. There are millions of different kinds of fungal species out there, and they cause different kinds of infections,” Cowen, a professor in the department of molecular genetics in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, told host Matt Galloway. “Some of them you can acquire by inhaling spores that are widespread in the environment. Some of them are already inside your body and living there as sort of natural members of your microbiota. Cowen, who admits she hasn’t yet seen The Last of Us, said that understanding fungi could help us better understand ourselves.