Why map the genome for the fungus that causes Dandruff?
Scientists have decoded the genetic building blocks of organisms ranging from yeast and rice to humans. But the fungus that causes dandruff? Surely we don’t want to decode that one. The facilities of one of the world’s most advanced science labs were used to sequence the genetic code of Malassezia globosa, the fungus that causes inconvenient flurries of dead skin to dust the shoulders of more than half of humans. “The only way to control dandruff is to make shampoos that kill the fungus,” explains Thomas Dawson from P&G Beauty’s Miami Valley Innovation Centre in Ohio, “But this is often inefficient, because the fungi are so much part of our scalps that they are sometimes immune to the shampoos.” To understand how to combat M globosa, you first need to know exactly how it works. And there’s no better way of getting to know an organism than to unlock the secrets of its DNA. So, Dawson and his team, who reported their work in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November, gr
