Finally, after three years of delayed repairs, our new climate chamber is up and running! Featuring programmable neon tubes, it now allows us to grow plants under varying day and night intervals. It didn’t take long for PhD students Sofie Friedrich and Milena Dziomba to place their strawberry plants in the chamber. Some of these plants have already been inoculated with pathogenic fungi. We're excited about the upcoming experiments in the climate chamber and the insights they will offer into the role of plant-associated mycobiomes.
We are pleased to welcome Christiaan Grobler from the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) in Pretoria to our lab for a three-month research stay. During his time with us, Christiaan will be focusing on Diplodia sapinea, a significant fungal pathogen in forestry.
This pathogen infects a variety of conifer species, leading to a discoloration that can severely impact the aesthetic and commercial value of the timber. The discoloration, also known as blue stain, reduces the marketability of affected wood and poses challenges for industries reliant on high-quality wood products.
Christiaan’s research aims to unravel the mechanisms by which Diplodia sapinea contributes to blue staining. By exploring the interactions between the fungus and its host trees, he hopes to identify key factors involved in the staining process.
We are thrilled to have welcomed our colleague from South Africa! Prof. Bernard Slippers from the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) in Pretoria joined us for a few days to work on our ongoing publications and to discuss future projects. It’s always a pleasure to have him with us, and we look forward to many exciting collaborations ahead.
Following his visit, Prof. Bernard Slippers and Prof. André Fleißner traveled together to the International Mycological Congress (IMC) in Maastricht, where they co-chaired the session “Fungal Interactions in the Phyllosphere: From Molecules to Communities” (https://imc12.org/).
We are thrilled to announce the publication of our paper, "Botrytis cinerea Combines Four Molecular Strategies to Tolerate Membrane-Permeating Plant Compounds and Increase Virulence," in Nature Communications. This study, a collaboration with Prof. Jan van Kan's group from Wageningen University, describes for the first time how a plant pathogenic fungus combines different cellular mechanisms to tolerate the membrane-damaging plant defense compounds α-tomatine and digitonin. These findings are also highly relevant to the issue of fungal resistance to fungicides in agriculture and antifungal drugs in clinical settings.
Congratulations to the entire team! Read more about the findings in Nature Communications:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-50748-5
We had the pleasure of hosting our collaboration partners Prof. Jan van Kan and Suraj Hassan Muralidhar from Wageningen University. Their two-day visit was filled with inspiring and lively discussions - and a celebration of our joined publication in Nature Communications. It was wonderful to have them here, and we look forward to many more exciting conversations in the future!
We are delighted to welcome our guest, Nathan Lapp from UC Berkeley's Conservation & Molecular Biology program, to Braunschweig. Nathan is conducting his project, which investigates the role of fungi in forest nutrient cycles, during the summer in Germany. He will be visiting the Fleißner research group and utilizing the laboratory facilities at the Institute of Genetics. We look forward to our time together and wish Nathan great success with his project.
André Fleißner has been appointed as an Associate Professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, effective July 1, 2024. The position is affiliated with the 'Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute' (FABI) and the 'Institute for Biochemistry, Genetics and Biotechnology'. Over the past 12 months, the Institute of Genetics has established a close collaboration with FABI in the field of fungal biology. In this context, several mutual visits, research stays, and student exchanges have already taken place. Future activities will include joint research, teaching, and the application for third-party funding.