Duncan is a molecular microbiologist and medical mycologist. He has worked extensively on the pathophysiology of Candida albicans and was involved in the discovery of the first pore forming toxin produced by a human fungal pathogen – candidalysin. Since establishing his own research group, he has focused on how fungal pathogens adapt to ‘nutritional immunity’ and specifically, how they deal with zinc starvation. When zinc is limited, C. albicans produces a zinc scavenging molecule called Pra1 which it uses to capture this essential trace mineral. They have recently demonstrated that Pra1 is responsible for causing the inflammatory immunopathology during vaginal Candida infections. They also found that vaginal inflammation can be prevented by application of a zinc-containing gel which switches off the production of Pra1.