Committee Members
- Prof Daniel Bebber (Committee Chair)
- Dr Alessandra Da Silva Dantas (FEMS representative)
- Dr Esther Garcia-Cela
- Dr Filipa Cox
- Dr Matthias Brock (Publications Committee Chair)
- Dr Rhys Farrer
Meet the members of the FBR Committee
Dan Bebber
Chair, Fungal Biology Research Committee
Dan Bebber is Associate Professor of Ecology at the Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter. He studies the effects of climate change on plant pests and pathogens, with a particular focus on plant pathogenic fungi in agricultural crops. He has previously worked on saprotrophic fungi in forests, and is the proud winner of an Ig Nobel Prize for research into the efficiency and resilience of slime mould transport networks.
Alessandra Da Silva Dantas
Alessandra is a Lecturer in Oral Biosciences at Newcastle University. Work in her lab focus on dissecting the molecular mechanisms used by Candida species to adapt and survive antifungal drug treatment and other host-derived stresses, such as reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by phagocytic cells. A key question that Alessandra’s laboratory is trying to answer is how the ageing process in Candida species is driving pathogenesis and antifungal resistance in these organisms. To answer those questions, she has developed cutting-edge methodologies and use FACS and microscopy-based techniques to investigate the molecular basis of ageing and age-heterogeneity in these fungal pathogens.
Esther Garcia-Cela
Esther is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Mycology at the University of Hertfordshire. Since her early years at the University, filamentous fungi have played a vital role in her life, with a passion nurtured through years of observation, analysis and research focused on deciphering their complexity, potential and hazards. She is currently leading the MycoLab research group at the UH, focusing on assessing different strategies to mitigate fungal spoilage and developing a better understanding of human exposure to mycotoxins. The holistic approach of MycoLab also provides a nurturing ground for developing industrial partnerships focused on applying filamentous fungi to different industrial processes and fermentations, environmental bioremediation or the development of agents for fungal biocontrol, among others.
Filipa Cox
Filipa is UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Earth and Environmental Sciences - Academic & Research at The University of Manchester. She works on the ecology of fungi, studying the processes that structure their communities at a range of spatial scales, and the critical roles that these organisms play in the cycling of carbon, nutrients and other elements through the environment. Much of Filipa's work focuses on a key group of mutualistic fungi that inhabit the roots of most plants. These mycorrhizal fungi are directly involved in the cycling of nitrogen and carbon between the plant and soil, playing vital roles in plant growth and belowground carbon storage.
Matthias Brock
Publications Committee Chair
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.
Rhys Farrer
Rhys is Senior Lecturer Senior Lecturer in Bioinformatics at the Universtiy of Exeter. Current projects focus on the evolution of virulence across several fungal genera with a particular focus on Candida, Cryptococcus and Chytridiomycota species. Rhys's research uses several sequencing technologies to study the patterns of genomic, transcriptomic, and gene-regulatory variation between and within populations of microbial pathogens.