I'm interested in all aspects of fungal biology. My research is focused on addressing three fundamental questions in mycology: (1) How do fungi evolve the ability to switch hosts or adapt to utilize various substrates? (2) How do fungi interact with other microorganisms? and (3) Where are potential unexplored habitats of novel fungal diversity? Genomics, metagenomics, transcriptomics,...
Past PMB Seminars
For a schedule of all Plant & Microbial Biology events, seminars, and lectures visit our calendar.
Dr. Nilah Ioannidis, Departments of Biomedical Data Science and Genetics, Stanford University
Abstract: Understanding the clinical significance of personal genome variation is a major challenge for personalized medicine, with large numbers of variants of unknown significance discovered in next-generation sequencing studies. I will first discuss two machine learning tools that we recently developed to predict the clinical significance of individual genetic variants. REVEL is a random...
Jong Duk Park: Plant and Microbial Biology Student/Postdoc Seminar
Come join us to hear research going on in PMB from graduate students and post docs. There will be snacks and coffee/tea. Please bring a mug. Hosted by the Plant and Microbial Biology Student Group (PMBG). This event is sponsored by the UCB Graduate Assembly. Event is ADA accessible. For disability accommodation requests and information, please contact Disability Access Services by phone at...
Aylon Steinhart: GFI Talk: The Future of Protein
Aylon Steinhart, coming from the Good Food Institute, a graduate from our very own Haas and co-founder of two start-ups, will be coming to give us insight about the issues that come with the meat industry and how plant-based meat industries are successfully finding ways around those problems. He has spoken at top campuses such as Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Yale about the entrepreneurial and...
Dr. David Knowles, Departments of Genetics and Radiology, Stanford University
Abstract: Transcription, the fundamental cellular process by which DNA is copied to RNA, is tightly regulated in healthy human development but frequently dysregulated in disease. During or shortly after transcription, regions known as “introns” are spliced out of the RNA to produce mature “messenger” RNA. Massively parallel sequencing of RNA (RNA-seq) has become a ubiquitous technology in...
Where Wild Beauty and Science Meet
Wildlife photojournalist and National Geographic fellow Joe Riis, who has documented the migrations of pronghorn, mule deer, and elk in Wyoming for more than a decade, will give a multimedia presentation and book signing of his new book, Yellowstone Migrations. A reception begins at 5:30 pm with the program at 6:30 pm. Riis will be joined by ecologist & UC Berkeley Professor Arthur Middleton,...
Michael Desai: Evolution in rapidly adapting populations
Natural selection and other evolutionary forces lead to particular patterns of evolutionary dynamics, and they leave characteristic signatures on the genetic variation within populations. We use a combination of theory and experiments to study the dynamics and population genetics of natural selection in asexual populations such as microbes and viruses.
Zack Zheng-Hui He: Regulation of vitamin 6 homeostasis
My lab is interested in utilizing a combination of cell, molecular, biochemical and genetic approaches to understand how cells communicate during plant growth and development.