Dr. Iliyan D. Iliev

Certain gut-dwelling fungi flourish in severe cases of COVID-19, amplifying the excessive inflammation that drives this disease while also causing long-lasting changes in the immune system, according to a new study led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian.

Dr. Iliyan D. Iliev, an associate professor of immunology in medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, co-director of the Microbiome Core and a member of the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) at Weill Cornell Medicine, is the lead investigator on a grant to Weill Cornell Medicine from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to target pathogenic fungi in patients with Crohn’s disease.

The presence of some fungal species in tumors predicts—and may even help drive—worse cancer outcomes, according to a study from Weill Cornell Medicine and Duke University researchers.

Awards, honors, prizes and achievements for the month of July.

Dr. Iliyan D. Iliev, an associate professor of immunology in medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and a member of the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Weill Cornell Medicine, has been awarded a five-year, $1.25 million CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR (Scientists Taking Risks) Program grant from Cancer Research Institute (CRI).

Individual Candida albicans yeast strains in the human gut are as different from each other as the humans that carry them, and some C. albicans strains may damage the gut of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to a new study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

A specific group of fungi residing in the intestines can protect against intestinal injury and influence social behavior, according to new preclinical research by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Antibody protection against harmful forms of fungi in the gut may be disrupted in some patients with Crohn’s disease—a condition caused by chronic inflammation in the bowel—according to a new study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.

Common fungi, often present in the gut, teach the immune system how to respond to their more dangerous relatives, according to new research from scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Dr. Iliyan Iliev, an associate professor of immunology in medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and a scientist in the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Weill Cornell Medicine, has been awarded the Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease (PATH) award by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

Higher levels of a type of fungus in the gut are associated with better outcomes for patients with a type of inflammatory bowel disease called ulcerative colitis who are treated with gut microbes from healthy donors.

Common drug treatments that lead to changes in gut fungi can persistently exacerbate allergic airway diseases such as asthma.

Vaccines containing inactivated versions of disease-causing germs are traditionally not as effective as live vaccines made with weakened pathogens.