Bruce Klein is a medical microbiologist interested in understanding and treating fungal disease. His research group is broadly focused on fungal pathogenesis and immunology and studies Blastomyces dermatitidis, a species of fungus endemic in Wisconsin and the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri river valleys that changes form depending on temperature. The projects in his research lab address questions such as: What are the mechanisms of fungal virulence? How does the host-fungal pathogen interaction define the progression of infection and disease? How do the innate and adaptive immune systems respond to fungi, and what are the key immunological steps required for vaccine immunity to fungal pathogens? How does the immune response to fungi go awry, resulting allergic inflammation in response to inhaled mold?