Special Interest Group Meeting

Molecular diagnostics of fungi/novel techniques in detection of fungi from environment

Organiser

Many fungi are pathogenic to plants or mankind, and many are ecologically important but have low abundance in the environment. Therefore accurate, rapid and robust detection and quantification of fungi are essential for disease diagnosis, modeling, and surveillance, as well as to understanding the microbial communities in the natural environments. In the last decade, through effective amplification, probe development and quantification of low levels of nucleic acids, various quantitative PCR technologies have revolutionized research on fungal detection. The session focus will be on the newest, cutting edge technologies by recognized experts in their application fields or environment of special interests. Talks will be presented by invited speakers and also will be selected from the submitted abstracts.

Confirmed speakers:

James Woodhall, The Food and Environment Research Agency, York, UK
- detection of soil fungi by molecular methods

Wen Chen, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada/Agriculture et Agroalimentaire Canada
- Oligonucleotide array design for the detection and identification of plant pathogenic fungi

Christiane Baschien, Berlin Institute of Technology, Germany
- In situ detection of fungi in the environment by FISH probes

Cor Schoen, Plant Research International, Wageningen, Netherlands
- Multiplex and quantification of plant pathogenic fungi using padlock probes

Clement Tsui, University of British Columbia, Canada
- Application of padlock probes and rolling circle amplification in the detection of beetle associated fungi