Fungal Genomics

Minou Nowrousian earned her diploma and Ph.D. in biology at the Ruhr-University Bochum in the laboratory of Dr. Ulrich Kück working in molecular biology of fungi. During her postdoc at Dartmouth Medical School in the laboratory of Dr. Jay Dunlap and Dr. Jennifer Loros, she worked on circadian rhythms in Neurospora . She is currently a research fellow at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Botany at the Ruhr-University Bochum. Her group combines molecular genetics and bioinformatics to study the molecular mechanisms and evolution of fungal development. A focus of her work is the analysis of the regulation of gene expression during development using genomics and transcriptomics.

Jason Stajich earned his Ph.D. Genomics and Genetics at Duke University in laboratory of Dr Fred Dietrich studying bioinformatics, evolution, and comparative genomics of Fungi focused on Cryptococcus and Coprinoposis . This was followed by postdoctoral as a MillerResearch Fellow in laboratory of Dr John Taylor at University of California, Berkeley using population and comparative genomics to study Coccidoides , Neurospora , and Batrachochytrium . He is currently a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology at University of California, Riverside. He develops computational tools for genome assembly, annotation, comparative genomics, phylogenomic analyses, and metagenomic studies of Fungi and Bacteria. His research team tests hypotheses about Fungi and their interactions with plants, animals, and other microbes with work on microevolution of Aspergillus fumigatus and Clavispora lusitaniae in Cystic Fibrosis lung environment, genomics of black yeast fungi in the Chaetothyriales and Dothideomycetes, the amphibian pathogen Batrachochytrium , role of Basidiobolus in gut health and microbiomes of amphibians and reptiles, and molecular ecology of fungi and bacteria in arid environments.