Challenging fungal infections, including Valley Fever, are on the rise. Valley Fever is caused by the fungus Coccidioides, which forms a unique and mysterious structure during infection – the spherule. Christina Homer is a physician-scientist who discovered that a family of Coccidioides protease enzymes is required to make spherules. She aims to unlock the role of these proteases in spherule formation and infection, and ultimately develop a protease inhibitor to treat Valley Fever.