Network Summer Meeting 2024

Summer Meeting attendees @170 Queen's Gate, South Kensington Campus

All day Summer Meeting spanning fungal biotechnologies, food security and human health.

The Fungal Science Network brings together researchers at Imperial and beyond to tackle global challenges in fungal science.

This year’s summer meeting was held as a hybrid all-day event on Friday 7^th June at 170 Queen’s Gate, South Kensington Campus, and was attended by over 70 participants in-person and even more remotely.  It showcased the wealth of contributions to fungal science across our three key research themes: pathogenesis of fungal diseases, biotechnology and engineering, and ecology, evolution and the environment.

The full programme included keynote speakers from the UK and overseas: Prof. Julian R. Naglik (King's College London), Dr Steve Templeton (Indiana University School of Medicine), Dr Claire Stanley (Imperial College London), Dr Irina Druzhinina (Royal Botanic Gardens Kew), Prof. Akhtar Ali (The University of Tulsa) and Prof. Nick Talbot (The Sainsbury Laboratory).  In addition to the 6 keynote speakers, 12 junior and senior scientists presented their work. Prizes for the best oral presentations were won by Sophie Appleyard and Anna Szabo for their talk on mycoviruses in Aspergillus fumigatus, Tahsin Khan for his talk on Candida auris in Bangladesh, and Juline Savigny for her talk on single cell metabolic heterogeneity in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.  There were extensive opportunities for networking during the day, and the meeting was followed by drinks at the Union Bar.

Researchers interested in the network can find more information and join the network via the dedicated webpages https://www.imperial.ac.uk/fungal-science-network/