Special Interest Group Meeting

Biology of clinically important zygomycetes

Organiser

Members of the polyphyletic fungal class Zygomycetes constitute a remarkable group of basal terrestrial fungi. Some of these fungi are soil-inhabiting saprobes, others are biotechnologically relevant in fatty acid and carotene production or important pathogens of plants, animals and humans. Zygomycetes gain an increasing importance as opportunistic pathogens causing mucoromycoses and entomophthoromycoses. While the mucoromycoses develop deep mycoses with highly devastating outcome, the entomophthoromycoses cause local infections with less progressive manifestation. That is in contrast what can be observed in nature, where the mucoralean fungi appear to be mainly saprobiontic but the entomophthoralean fungi are entomopathogenic causing systemic infections on insects. The Special Interest Group meeting focuses on the etiology, clinical manifestation, treatment and systematics and evolution of clinically important zygomycetes aiming at the presentation, the combination and the exchange of different expertise from scientists working on that interesting group of fungi all over the world.

This SIG meeting is planned to be the first step towards building up a communication network for medical and mycological research groups working on these microscopic fungi. It can open the door to a platform for the organization of joint research in terms of cooperation and applications.

Programme

Sybren de Hoog, Grit Walther, Ana Alastruey Izquierdo, Kerstin Voigt, Xuelian Lu, CBS Utrecht, The Netherlands
Towards a stable taxonomy for the Mucorales

Hsiao-Man Ho, National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan
Diversity of Zygomycetes in Taiwan with emphasis on thermophilic species

Kerstin Hoffmann, University of Jena, Germany
Zygomycetes as emerging pathogens: an overview

Ilse Jacobsen, Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology - Hans-Knöll-Institute Jena, Germany
Embryonated Eggs as Alternative Infection Model to Study the Virulence of Lichtheimia

Guido Fischer, Landesgesundheitsamt Stuttgart, Germany
Zygomycetes under the "Fungiscope" - Identification and its implications for treatment