Shelby J. Priest

This study identifies essential genes in the mating-type locus of Cryptococcus neoformans, showing that four genes are essential for viability while MYO2 is critical for pathogenicity despite not being essential.

The paper identifies RNAi loss-of-function mutations in Cryptococcus neoformans and shows they can lead to hypermutation when combined with transposon burdens.

The paper investigates whether loss of the mismatch repair protein Msh2 relaxes species boundaries between Cryptococcus neoformans and C. deneoformans, finding increased hybrid viability and aneuploidy but no increased recombination.