• Question: do you think fungus is interesting

    Asked by anon-238546 to James, Hannah, Claire, Chris, binuraj, Alice on 17 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Hannah Blyth

      Hannah Blyth answered on 17 Mar 2020:

      I think fungi are really interesting and not well understood despite the consequences they can have for human health! Approximately 50 fungal species are known to cause human diseases. However, human wellbeing absolutely includes the plants we grow to eat. There are roughly 10,000 known plant disease-causing fungi which are bad for global food security. 2020 is the International Year of Plant Health, for this reason (and because I work on a particular wheat leaf fungus) I love talking about and trying to enthuse students about fungi!

    • Photo: Binuraj Menon

      Binuraj Menon answered on 17 Mar 2020:

      Hi Nine389cup,

      I have a different perspective to that of Hannah. I work on natural product biosynthesis. Fungus could synthesise amazing bioactive molecules with potential application in developing pharmaceuticals, antibiotics and new drugs. Most of the fungal natural product biosynthetic genes and proteins are least explored. To me they are interesting and exciting to study.

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