Who we are & What we do?

Our research contributes to the accumulation of information on tropical fungi, particularly Thailand, and renders available numerous strains from natural habitat for application in agriculture and other research institution. We are focusing mainly on entomopathogenic fungi and edible mushrooms, particularly ectomycorrhiza. These two groups have a strong potential for application in agriculture.
We also take pride in transferring knowledge to communities and other institutions as well as training graduate and undergraduate students.

Research programs in the laboratory includes:
Phylogenetic and taxonomic studies of invertebrate pathogenic fungi and mushrooms. Much of our work is focused on molecular systematics of invertebrate-pathogenic fungi using multi-gene sequences, morphological characterization and the use of molecular phylogenetics for studying the evolution of morphological and ecological characters. We use similar approaches to study edible mushrooms and other ectomycorrhizal fungi. Population and comparative genomics studies of entomopathogenic fungi and mushrooms. As molecular phylogenies have their limit in species identification, particularly for cryptic species (closely related species with confounding morphology), we develop a framework using genomics-based delimitation of species by searching for concordance among single nucleotide polymorphisms throughout the genome. In order to establish a basis for future use of these fungi, comparative genomics studies are conducted on some interesting strains or species to gain more insights into the biology and evolution. Chemotaxonomy. Secondary metabolite profiles from fungal extracts are used to study the chemical diversity that may be used as signature molecules to support molecular systematics of selected fungal species and genera.