Dr. Cramer is a professor and vice chair in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine. Since his graduate studies began in 1999 at Colorado State University (CSU) and his post-doctoral fellowship at Duke University Medical Center in 2004, his research career has focused on how filamentous fungi cause disease. Since 2007, the Cramer laboratory has focused on defining Aspergillus fumigatus molecular pathogenesis and drug susceptibility mechanisms in diverse host contexts. A particular research interest is defining the key genes and pathways Aspergillus species utilize to persist and cause disease in the lung, i.e. disease progression factors. As A. fumigatus persists and causes disease often through the formation of drug-resistant biofilms, defining biofilm form and function in these distinct lung environments associated with contemporary medical therapies is an ongoing research goal. The Cramer lab is also currently leveraging small molecule screens to identify novel antifungal chemical matter that target critical in vivo fungal disease progression and drug resistance factors in Aspergillus biofilms. Recently, a screen for small molecules active in hypoxic microenvironments identified MBX-7591 that is now in the hit-lead stage of antifungal drug development. A main theme that runs throughout investigations in the Cramer Lab is the central role of Aspergillus carbon and nitrogen metabolism in pathogenesis and drug susceptibility.