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A meticulous series of experiments links one particular fungal genus to pancreatic cancer. Researchers showed that fungi from the genus Malassezia (particularly, M. globosa) travel from the gut through the sphincter of Oddi to the pancreas. Both in human pancreatic cancer and in a genetically engineered mouse model that develops pancreatic cancer, this fungal species is present in concentrations 3000 times higher than its concentrations in normal or benignly inflamed pancreatic tissue — an association not seen with any other gut fungi. Is this fungus an opportunistic colonizer of tumor tissue, or does the fungus encourage growth of the tumor?
In the mouse model, eliminating the fungus from the gut early in life slowed development of pancreat…