Scientists find the trick a deadly fungus uses to shrug off medicine — and tricks can be countered

Candida auris is the hospital fungus doctors dread: it clings to skin and equipment, spreads between patients and too often ignores the drugs thrown at it. A team led by the University of Exeter and City St George's, University of London, has now caught one of its escape methods in the act — the fungus makes multiple versions of its entire genome, mutating a gene tied to the strength of its cell wall. The discovery, published in Nature Communications, matters because a resistance trick you can name is a resistance trick you can design around.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation