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Culture collection management & fungal taxonomy

Information about training programme

 

  • Title of training: Culture collection management & fungal taxonomy
  • Description of project: Training offered includes aspects of day-to-day curation of a living collections of microorganisms (fungi, bacteria) including culture maintenance and data management, strain preservation techniques including cryopreservation and freeze-drying, and characterization of fungal strains based on culture characteristics, morphology of sporulating structures, and DNA sequencing techniques.
  • Duration of training: 3 weeks

Type of training

Practical experiences

  • Hands-on training in culture preservation techniques, by working with staff in the cryopreservation and freeze-drying facilities of the collection department.
  • Fungal strain(s) of an unidentified (and possibly novel species of) ascomycete will be studied in culture on different media, the sporulating structures will be photographed and described and, if applicable, compared in culture with related species. In addition to this phenotyic characterization, the strains will also be studied at the molecular level by sequencing and/or other relevant techniques.

Lectures

  • Fungal nomenclature – Dr Joost A. Stalpers, Curator (JAS)
  • Legal aspects and regulations affecting culture collections – JAS
  • Basics of collection management – JAS
  • Principles of long-term preservation techniques - JAS
  • Ascomycete taxonomy and morphological identification – Dr Gerard Verkley, assistant-curator (GV)
  • Describing a new fungal species - GV
  • DNA sequence-based identification of fungi – GV

Seminars

  • Weekly a seminar from the CBS seminar series can be attended.

Contact information of mentor / supervisor

  • Name of mentor / supervisor: Dr Gerard Verkley
  • Institution / Organisation: Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures (CBS) / Fungal Biodiversity Centre
  • EDIT partner number: 8
  • Unit / Department / Laboratory: Collection Department
  • Address: Uppsalalaan 8, NL 3584 CT Utrecht, the Netherlands

Target audience: MSc student, PhD students early career researchers working on fungal taxonomy.

Training can be adapted to needs of the trainee.