WELCOME TO THE CENTER FOR INTEGRATED FUNGAL RESEARCH
The goal of the Center for Integrated Fungal Research (CIFR) is to integrate all aspects of fungal research including environmental and climate initiatives, disease, agriculture, evolution, mathematical modeling, genomics and bioinformatics, and to translate knowledge from fundamental research to stakeholders, the general public, and the scientific community. CIFR will promote education and understanding of the relative contribution of global biodiversity to the beneficial and deleterious activities of fungi.
Read about Ignazio Carbone’s and James White’s Tree-Based Alignment Selector (T-BAS) toolkit for assembling a Phytophthora “Tree of Life” in collaboration with Jean Ristaino and colleagues: https://news.ncsu.edu/2023/04/researchers-assemble-pathogen-tree-of-life/
Congratulations to Manuel Kleiner who was included in NC State’s 2022-23 class of University Faculty Scholars!
Alun Lloyd has been named as the College of Sciences’ Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Read all about it HERE. Congratulations!
Kevin Garcia’s research focuses on the symbiotic relationship between Mycorrhizal fungi and plants. Read all about how “Fungi Could Be the Future of Healthier Plants“.
Congratulations to Ben Callahan, the 2023 American Society for Microbiology (ASM) 2023 Data Prize awardee! More about his journey and contributions can be found HERE.
Congratulations to Manuel Kleiner, who received $700,000 of funding from the Department Of Energy to work on soil necromass with the DOE Biological & Environmental Research Program.
Read all about Marcela Rojas-Pierce’s Plants In Space HERE.
William Neal Reynolds Professor Jean Ristaino together with co-applicants Ignazio Carbone, Peter Ojiambo, Chris Jones, Kelly Zering, Laura Tateosian, Qingshan Wei, Ranga Vatsavai, Ross Meetenmeyer and Jason Delborne have been awarded a $1 million Phase I planning grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to use real-time analytics to monitor and predict emerging plant diseases. The announcement can be found HERE.
Amy Grunden and her co-applicants (Lars Hestbjerg Hansen, Rosanna Catherine Hennessy, Mette Haubjerg Nicolaisen, Jens Stougaard, Dugald Reid, Paul Schulze-Lefert, and Harro Bouwmeester) were awarded funds to plan and host the upcoming Copenhagen Bioscience Conference “Exploring Plant-Microbe Interactions for Enhanced Crop Resilience” which will be held November 13-17, 2022.
The next Darwin Days event will focus primarily on fungi and is scheduled for Saturday, November 12, 2022 (10 am – 5 pm). We invite you to join us and participate in this public science education event on fungal biology and evolution.
Congratulations to Marc Cubeta and Shuijin Hu for their selection as a 2021 AAAS Fellow!
Marc Cubeta recently developed an online “Why Mushroom grown in my Yard (Sometimes) video for the North Carolina State University Extension Homegrown series. This series provides educational information on timely topics to non-traditional audiences across the state (particularly for younger families in urban and suburban settings) to help address their interests and needs!
Marc Cubeta, students from his laboratory and Introduction to Mycology (PP575) class, and colleague Dr. Henry Van Cotter, participated in the recent Darwin Days event at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences on November 13, 2021. They organized an educational outreach exhibit entitled “Fungi and animals: an evolutionary history” to provide visitors with information on the diversity and evolution of fungi, their interactions with animals and importance to society. More than 1800 visitors eager to learn about fungi attended this exhibit.
Our newest CIFR faculty member, Marcela Rojas-Pierce and her postdoctoral fellow, Mengying Wang, are studying how microgravity affect plant cellular processes at the International Space Station, with funding from the North Carolina Space Grant. Read all about their exciting research adventure HERE.
Shuijin Hu has been named a 2021 Fellow of the Ecological Society of America. The announcement is posted HERE. Congratulations Shuijin!!!
Learn how we are working to explore the diverse roles of fungi in the biosphere.
Learn how we plan to model, predict and manage the consequences of environmental impacts on microbes and microbial processes.
Learn more about CIFR faculty members and opportunities for interdisciplinary research and training.
