For 27 years, campus has been home to the Fungal Biology Supergroup, a loose alliance of professors and researchers in disciplines that range from botany and pharmacy to medicine and public health.
Christina Hull, a professor of biomolecular chemistry and medical microbiology and immunology, said the UW supergroup is the largest and most diverse collection of fungal researchers in the world. Members, including faculty, researchers and students, study a wide range of topics, from research on medical applications for psychedelic mushrooms to the development of antifungal treatments for people, animals and plants. The group meets monthly to share progress in their fields, make connections, and create research partnerships.
Hull has teamed with Nancy Keller, a professor of plant pathology as well as medical microbiology and immunology, to conduct research into antifungal drug development. Meanwhile, Keller has partnered with Anne Pringle, a professor of botany, to study nematodes, microscopic roundworms found throughout the world. While most nematodes are harmless or even beneficial to soil health, others can cause debilitating maladies like elephantiasis, river blindness and trichinosis. Keller and Pringle are exploring the metabolites in a certain mushroom that could kill harmful nematodes.
UW’s fungi expertise extends back more than 75 years. Kenneth Raper, a professor of bacteriology and botany, played a key role in the commercialization of penicillin cultures, after a fungus discovered on a moldy cantaloupe in Peoria, Illinois, became “the great granddaddy” of all penicillin cultures now in use.
