Kyung J. Kwon-Chung

Biosketch

Kyung J. Kwon-Chung, PhD, is an NIH Distinguished Investigator and Chief of the Molecular Microbiology Section in the Laboratory of Clinical Immunology and Microbiology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH). She earned her BS in Biology from Ewha Womans University in South Korea and her MS and PhD from the Department of Bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Laboratory of Microbiology and joined the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation at NIAID as a senior investigator in 1973.

Dr. Kwon-Chung has served as vice president of the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology (ISHAM) and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the International Mycological Association. In 2009, she received an honorary doctoral degree in science from the University of Wisconsin. Her numerous awards include the International Society of human and Animal Mycology Award, the Lucile George Award from ISHAM, the Rhoda Benham Award from the Medical Mycology Society of the Americas, the Sungji Academy Award from Korean Society of Mycology, the Distinguished Scholar Award from Ewha Womans University, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society for Microbiology, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Brazilian Society of Microbiology.

Research Interests

Dr. Kwon-Chung's research has focused on the pathobiology of Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii, the two causative agents of cryptococcosis, since she uncovered the complete life cycle of these species in the mid-1970s. These environmental opportunistic fungi are widely encountered by humans from childhood. Both species can cause meningoencephalitis in immunocompromised patients and are treated with the same regimens. Untreated cryptococcal meningoencephalitis is 100% fatal, and even with treatment, 30% of patients die. Dr. Kwon-Chung's research aims to understand the mechanisms of cryptococcal pathogenesis. Her studies involve identifying virulence factors, mechanisms of brain invasion, differences in risk factors between the two species, mechanisms of drug resistance, and variations in host responses to the invasion of the two species in animal models.