The Imperial Fungal Science Network is a hub for the mycology community, providing a leadership, advocacy and communications platform for mycologists and a developmental framework for future leaders in fungal research. We welcome you to the Imperial Fungal Science Network – Seminar Series 2026 for a seminar programme highlighting the work of Early Career Researchers.
Seminar | ECR Talks | 12:00– 13:00 | Thursday 19th February
📍G47, Flowers Building, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ find us at Map/3A
- In-person & online (via Teams, click ‘Livestream’ button on LHS)
- No registration required
- This is a hybrid event to ensure that our non-London members/audience can join for the talks remotely; if you are joining us via the Teams link, please be aware that your email contact may show up to other meeting attendees, please join using an organisation email contact where possible, thanks.
Schedule
11:30
Arrivals & refreshments
11:55
Teams link opens for online attendees
12:00-12:05
Introductions & Network overview (Prof. Darius Armstrong-James)
12:05-13.05
SPEAKER PROGRAMME:
Biotechnology and engineering
Shirin Bamezai (Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein and Microbial Food Hub, Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London)
Metabolic engineering of Yarrowia lipolytica for the bioproduction of food-system relevant compounds
The global food system struggles to meet rising demand while protecting human and planetary health. Microbial biomanufacturing offers a resilient alternative to costly, low-yield plant extraction. This talk presents two strategies expanding the metabolic capabilities of Yarrowia lipolytica, specifically engineering the yeast to produce a range of natural food colourants, and developing a co-culture system for ginger essential oil bioproduction, a promising biocontrol alternative to synthetic agrochemicals.
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Pathogenesis of fungal diseases
Xinxin Shou (Armstrong-James Lab, Department of Infectious Disease, Imperial College London)
Pathobiology of fungal histamine tolerance in allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis
Aspergillus fumigatus is a filamentous fungus which can causes types of aspergilloses. During allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA), mast cell histamine release in the airways potentially contributes to local inflammation. We observe that clinical isolates from ABPA patients exhibit enhanced growth in histamine-containing medium compared to non-allergic isolates. Transcriptomic analysis further revealed that histamine exposure resulted in upregulation of genes encoding copper amine oxidases in A. fumigatus, suggesting a mechanism for increased histamine tolerance in clinical strains. Here I will present further studies aimed at dissecting mechanisms of histamine tolerance and relevance to survival in vivo and in vitro in allergic immune environments.
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Ecology, evolution and the environment
J. Miguel Bonnin (Bell Lab, Department of Life Sciences, Silwood Park, Imperial College London)
Culture collection coverage gaps in fungi — and what community cryopreservation can do about them
Fungal biobanks mainly consist of pure ‘axenic’ cultures, but many fungi are recalcitrant to conventional isolation approaches. Analysis of global culture collection holdings reveals systematic gaps — particularly among symbiont-dependent and slow-growing taxa — that ‘pure’ culture approaches fundamentally cannot close. I will present experimental evidence showing that complex microbial communities can be cryopreserved while retaining fungal viability, suggesting that community context may itself protect organisms that have, to date, resisted all isolation attempts.
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13:05
Close
Researchers interested in the Network can find more information and join the Network via the dedicated website / Follow us @ImperialFungal (BlueSky; X/Twitter)