Publications Committee

Matthias Brock

CHAIR, PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE

Matthias has more than 25 years research experience on fungi with topics ranging from fungal physiology to fungal pathogenesis, natural product research and biotechnology. He started his work with Prof. Wolfgang Buckel and Reinhard Fischer at the Philipps-University Marburg (Germany), before he went to the University of Hannover (Germany) to join the Institute for Microbiology headed by Prof. Axel Brakhage. He then became group leader at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology in Jena (Germany). In 2015 he was appointed at the University of Nottingham (UK) where he continues his research with of focus on fungal NRPS-like enzymes.

Benjamin Wolfe

Benjamin Wolfe is Associate Professor of Biology at Tufts University, Massachusettes, USA. The Wolfe lab studies the ecology and evolution of microbial communities, with a focus on fungal-bacterial interactions. The lab uses a series of model microbial communities based on fermented foods (cheeses, sourdough, fermented vegetables, and kombucha) to identify factors that shape the diversity of fungal and bacterial communities. Using classic culture-based approaches combined with comparative genomics, transcriptomics, and modelling approaches, the lab seeks to identify general ecological design principles for microbiomes. Past research in the lab has explored plant-microbe interactions in the phyllosphere. Benjamin's graduate research during his MSc and PhD focused on the ecology and evolution of mycorrhizal fungi in forests and wetlands.

Geoffrey M. Gadd

Geoff Gadd holds the Boyd Baxter Chair of Biology and leads the Geomicrobiology Group in the School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee. His  main research interests relate to fungal metal and mineral transformations in the contexts of environmental significance for metal mobility, mineral dissolution and biomineralization, and applications in metal biorecovery and recycling, bioremediation, and biodeterioration in the built environment and of cultural heritage. Geoff's work has established geomycology as a recognised research area within geomicrobiology and he has published over 330 refereed papers, 2 co-authored books, and many co-edited books, invited book chapters and reviews, and delivered >130 invited lectures in >20 countries. Geoff has been recognised by several international awards and Fellowships for his research contributions and was BMS President 2004-2007.

Geoffrey Kibby

Geoffrey Kibby is a leading authority on a variety of mushroom genera, publishing identification guides and taxonomic revisions of those especially difficult to identify - invariably illustrated by his own drawings. Geoffrey had a career as an entomologist based at the Natural History Museum until 1998 and was also a keen amateur mycologist. In retirement he has devoted himself to macrofungi. 

Irina Druzhinina

Irina S. Druzhinina is the Senior Research Leader at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Throughout her career to date, Irina has focused on taxonomy, DNA barcoding, molecular evolution, ecophysiology, and ecological genomics of industrially significant fungi. From 2018 to 2022, she served as a Full Professor at Nanjing Agricultural University, China, where she investigated surface-active proteins and their roles in fungal fitness and development. This exploration led to a reconsideration of fungal taxonomy and evolution using advanced genomic techniques. Irina has co-authored nearly 200 scientific articles and books, advising numerous PhD studies in fungal diversity and biotechnology. She is a member of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Fungi (ICTF, IUMS), Senior editor of Fungal Biology Reviews (BMS), and also edits the Applied and Environmental Microbiology (AEM, ASM) journal.

Jan Dijksterhuis

Jan Dijksterhuis has 30 years of experience with applied research on fungi. In early years, he studied nematode-destroying fungi, rust fungi and Oomycetes at the Universities of Groningen (NL) and Edinburgh (Scotland). He also addressed biological control of fungi by bacteria at Wageningen University. There he started to work on very stress-resistant fungal spores and from that time on, the fungal spore remained an important and continuous interest in his research. In 2001, he initiated a position as a researcher at the Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures, the biggest biobank of fungi in the world, now known as The Westerdijk Institute. Since then, he has also studied the production of antibiotics of fungi, the mode of action of antifungals and indoor growth of fungi. Jan is involved in numerous collaborative projects on the topic of food spoilage.