I´m interested mainly in fungal molecular biology in combination with ecological questions. My research field is focused mainly on “higher” fungi (and little about bacteria). I aim to get a closer view on functions within soils using genomic and proteomic techniques. Hereby I focus on fungal enzymes mainly involved in the degradation of lignocellulose, which is the most abundand biopolymer on earth. Currently I work also on genes involved in nitrogen and phosphate cycling in soil. A main question is how fungi shape with their enzymatic sets the soil environment and finally whole ecosystems. In which biogeochemical cycles are specific fungal groups involved, and when and “how much” are they active?

My future interests also involve aspects of plant physiology (e.g. degradation capabilities of mycorrhizal fungi on or in plant roots - and plant response). Moreover, the linkage of our findings to metaproteom analysis of soils are a possible task in my future.

Methods interest

I have experience with different DNA and RNA extraction methods, including direct extraction from soil samples. Downstream procedures like (RT-) PCRs are usual applications for me. In my projects I use sets of primers to amplify and sequence different fungal genes for functional and systematic purposes. I then analyse the sequences using different computer programs, including PAUP4.0, MrBayes and BioEdit7, to generate phylogenetic trees. I’m also interested in proteomic aspects of gene regulation, with procedures like protein precipitation from pure cultures and soils, separation on SDS-PAGE, Western blotting and antibody incubation to detect specific proteins. I’m also interested in new tools and approaches, like real-time PCR and metatranscriptomics (which I am doing recently).

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