Prof. Dr. Natalia Requena	Prof. Dr. Reinhard Fischer	Prof. Dr. Jörg Kämper
Molecular Phytopathology	Microbiology	Genetics

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome!

 

It is a great pleasure for us to welcome you to the annual meeting of the XI Interanational Conference on Fungal Biology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).

The entire meeting will be held without distraction in the same building, in the Tulla lecture hall at Campus South, which will allow direct interaction with all participants during the breaks between sessions. Posters will be located in the break area, and thus will attract the most attention of the participants.

 

 

We will do our best to organize a most interesting and enjoyable meeting in Karlsruhe!

 

Molecular Mycology in Karlsruhe’s technical environment

The University of Karlsruhe, presently known as the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), was founded in 1825 as a polytechnical school. In 1832, the first biological discipline, the school of Forest Science, was incorporated into the Polytechnical School. The chair of Botany, held by Alexander Braun (1833 – 1846), lectured topics in botany and zoology. In 1872, Pharmacy was added, and before the end of the 19^th century, the Botany and Zoology departments were split into two teaching units. In 1890, Walter Migula, a pioneer in bacterial systematics, habilitated in botany and served as professor until 1904; he described the important bacterial genus Pseudomonas in 1895. Forestry was later moved to Freiburg and Pharmacy to Heidelberg. After World War II, teaching started again, and in 1956 H. Kühlwein was appointed as the Chair of Botany. Although a professor of botany, Kühlwein became internationally recognized for his work on Myxobacteria. One of his Ph.D. students, H. Reichenbach, continued research with these gliding bacteria at the GBF in Braunschweig. Kühlwein also studied the physiology of some wood-degrading fungi.

In 1967, the University was restructured and renamed University of Karlsruhe, and several new Chairs were appointed, among them a new Chair of Microbiology, W. Zumft. One of the charms of KIT is that within Campus South (the former University of Karlsruhe) microbiologists are not only members of the Faculty of Chemistry and Biosciences, but also of the Faculties of Chemical Engineering (Institute of Life Sciences Engineering), Civil Engineering, and Geo- and Environmental Sciences (Institute of Biology for Engineers and Biotechnology of Wastewater Treatment).  They are also situated at Campus North (formerly Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe), at the Institute for Functional Interfaces, and close to Campus South, at the Max-Rubner Institute (formerly Bundesanstalt für Ernährung und Lebensmittel). Other microbiology research groups are located in the Water Technology Center (TZW) Karlsruhe or at Geilweiler Hof.

 

Prof. Dr. Reinhard Fischer, Microbiology

Institute of Applied Biosciences, Dept. of Microbiology, Faculty for Chemistry and Biosciences; www.iab.kit.edu/microbio/

Filamentous fungi are extremely polarized eukaryotic cells that continuously elongate their hyphal tips. The Aspergillus research group studies the cell biology underlying polarized growth, which is driven by the concerted action of microtubules, actin and the corresponding motor proteins that deliver enzymes for cell wall biosynthesis to the cortex. Recently, it was discovered that at least two different populations of microtubules exist in the hyphae of Aspergillus nidulans.

A. nidulans is able to initiate different morphogenetic programs and develop either asexual or sexual spores. One environmental trigger for these processes is light. The group recently identified phytochrome as one of the important photoreceptors in this fungus, which shows that phytochrome also functions outside the plant kingdom.

 

Prof. Dr. Jörg Kämper, Genetics

 

Institute of Applied Biosciences, Dept. of Genetics, Faculty for Chemistry and Biosciences; http://genetics.iab.kit.edu/

The basidiomycete Ustilago maydis is a ubiquitous pathogen of maize and a well-established model organism for the study of plant-microbe interactions. This fungus belongs to the group of biotrophic parasites that depend on living tissue for proliferation and development. Pathogenic development in U. maydis is linked to a dimorphic switch from budding to filamentous growth. The main interest of the Molecular Phytopathology group is to understand the regulatory networks that link pathogenic development and the morphological changes of the fungal cell. Expression profiling, in combination with reverse genetic approaches, has led to the identification of various novel pathogenicity factors. Another focus of the group is the metabolic reprogramming of the maize plant by U. maydis, and the utilization of carbon sources by the fungus during pathogenic development.

 

Prof. Dr. Natalia Requena, Molecular Phytopathology

Botanical Institute, Dept. of Plant-Microbe Interactions, Faculty for Chemistry and Biosciences; http://www.iab.kit.edu/heisenberg/

 

Microorganisms often live in association with plants either in mutualistic symbioses or as parasites. The focus of the plant-fungal interactions group is the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis that involves the fungi of the Glomeromycota phylum and most plant roots. The colonization of a root by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi involves a deep reorganization of the plant cell to accommodate the symbiont and to provide the fungus with photoassimilates. We are interested in unraveling the recognition mechanisms and involved molecules that characterize this symbiosis. How have plants learned to distinguish between pathogenic and mutualistic fungi? How have some pathogens learned to escape the defense response of the plant? We use as model organisms the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Glomus intraradices and the hemibiotrophic pathogenic fungus Magnaporthe oryzae.

 

DFG Research Unit 1341, http://www.for1334.kit.edu/

This research unit was founded in 2010 and is a collaborative action among five groups from Mexico and nine groups from Germany. The topic of this new alliance is molecular analysis of the polarized growth of different filamentous fungi. Filamentous growth is adapted to different growth and developmental conditions, and is highly modulated by internal and external signals. These signaling processes are part of our research. Funding for the German groups is provided by the DFG and by CONACYT for the Mexican groups.