The Study of Fungal Secretome:“Fungi are what they secrete” | Down to Earth

About the Programme

Fungi are ubiquitous but our understanding of their species and functional diversity is very limited. Less than 10% of estimated fungal diversity has been described, and among the described taxa, the ecological functions remain largely elusive. As sessile heterotrophs, fungi interact with the environment mostly by secreting various proteins outside of their cells to acquire food, to compete with other microbes and to fight against pathogens.

It is believed that the composition of fungal secretome is tightly linked to their food source (e.g., plants, or animals) and ecological guilds (e.g., pathogens, decomposers). Prof Ying’s lab works on the characterization of secretome content of the fungi across the whole Kingdom Fungi.

Join this programme to learn more about the Kingdom Fungi and how fungal secretome is shaped together by inheritance and lifestyle.

This programme is part of a series on sustainability co-curated with the NUS Department of Biological Sciences.

Please note that presentation slides may be available during or after the programme, depending on the programme. Where applicable, only participants who attend the programme can have access to the slides via instructions given during the programme.

About the Speaker

Dr. Ying Chang was trained as bryologist during her graduate studies. She did her MSc at the National University of Singapore and her PhD at University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, working on the phylogenetics of mosses and early landplant evolution.

She started her work in mycology as a post-doc at UBC and at the Oregon State University.

She took phylogenomic and comparative genomic approaches to infer the evolution of fungi and their ecological functions, especially the early-diverging fungal groups.

She is currently holding a joint appointment as an assistant professor at Yale-NUS and the Department of Biological Sciences NUS.

She continues her research interests in studying fungal ecological functions through genomics.

In the meantime, she is exploring the local micro-fungi diversity using both traditional culturing and metabarcoding approaches, with a special interest in fungi found in the marine environments.

About Down to Earth

Down to Earth Series unpacks pertinent sustainability topics and makes them accessible whatever your background.

From demystifying the latest green buzzwords to illuminating the incredible biodiversity we live amongst, join us and grow your knowledge with experts as they give you the break down on all things green.

Important Notice
This programme is open to members of the National Library Board, Singapore. Please ensure you have your myLibrary username on hand before proceeding with the registration. If you do not have a myLibrary username, you can create one here: https://account.nlb.gov.sg/
 

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