These conference reports are written by the beneficiaries of our travel fund.
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5th – 8th March 2023
I am very grateful for BSPP Travel Funding which enabled me to attend the 16th European Conference of Fungal Genetics in March 2023. The conference was held in the beautiful Austrian city of Innsbruck, and the conference venue made the most of this with its huge windows with panoramic mountain views. There was a large attendance of around 900 people, and a huge number of fascinating sessions to choose between.
One talk which inspired me was a keynote talk by Eva Stukenbrock. Her talk ‘Fungal interactions and coadaptation in the plant phyllosphere’ focused on Zymoseptoria tritici. This pathogen of wheat is the topic of my PhD research, so the content was particularly relevant to me. One aspect of her talk was about the role of microbial interactions in the wheat phyllosphere. The group used apoplastic wash fluid extraction to characterise the microbial endophytic community in wheat. Impressively, over 2,000 bacterial cultures and hundreds of fungal species were isolated. On screening some of these bacteria in vitro for interactions with Z. tritici, around 20% of species were found to interfere with the growth of the fungus. Z. tritici was also found to be effective at inhibiting growth of some bacterial species. The group then were able to identify candidate Z. tritici effectors which may be important in preventing antagonism by bacterial species in the wheat apoplast. This was a fascinating and intriguing talk, with important implications for understanding how this pathogen interacts with less-understood aspects of its environment, and may generate targets for future control strategies.
Several talks encouraged me to look further into my existing work. For instance, João Neves da Rocha gave an interesting talk highlighting alternative splicing as a stress responsive system in fungi. In Trichophyton rubrum, the number of splicing-regulated genes was similar to the number of differentially expressed genes under stress conditions (around 1/3 of all genes), and included transcription factors. João highlighted the importance of investigating splicing in existing RNAseq datasets, adding that this could be more informative than gene expression. The Bioconductor packaged ASpli was recommended for this analysis.
The most beneficial aspect of the conference for me was the interactions with other scientists, particularly during poster sessions. I was pleased to receive interesting feedback and ideas on my own poster, including suggestions for future experiments. I also was able to connect with scientists working on complementary areas to my own, to seek their advice or discuss potential collaborations.
Overall I had a very positive and useful experience at the conference, and am grateful for the opportunity to attend.
Luca Steel
Rothamsted Research and University of Nottingham
TOP IMAGE: Presenting my poster was a highlight.
Innsbruck offered beautiful views in every direction.
These conference reports are written by the beneficiaries of our travel fund.
Click here to read more about the fund and apply yourself
