Eukaryotic Microbiology Division

The Division aims to promote eukaryotic microbiology in its widest context in fundamental, applied and environmental aspects. It will also provide a scientific focus for a subject that has often been fragmented over a range of different subject areas, scientific groups and societies. All major eukaryotic systems (fungi, protozoa, algae, slime moulds) are included as well as their various life styles as symbionts and pathogens or saprophytes including their various relationships with other organisms in the environment.

The Division also encompasses interest in eukaryotic microbial interactions with prokaryotes and viruses in host-pathogen, environmental and biotechnological contexts, and symbioses involving eukaryotic micro-organisms with other protists, animals and plants, e.g. lichens, rumen microbiology, plant–mycorrhizal relationships. Our aim is to bring interdisciplinary and comparative thought to a wide range of biological problems using eukaryotic microbes as key model organisms.

The remit of the four themes is as follows.

Fundamental Microbiology

Cell biology, genomics, physiology, biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology and the ecology of eukaryotes (including established model systems such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Aspergillus nidulans, Neurospora crassa, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Dictyostelium discoideum, Trypanosoma brucei and Plasmodium falciparum). This area embodies interest in cell signalling, morphogenesis and development, cytoskeleton, meiosis and recombination, mechanisms and control of gene expression, cell cycle biology, sexual and asexual development, population dynamics, and the relevance of these processes to environmental success and survival.

Microbial Diversity and Evolution

Eukaryotic evolution; the origin and diversification of cell complexity and organization; taxonomy and systematics; eukaryotic microbial communities in the environment, biotechnology and disease.

Translational Microbiology

Fungal/yeast fermentations, environmental biotechnology, product synthesis and purification (including antibiotics), yeast biotechnology including yeast expression systems; commercial process development. The development of new technologies based on other eukaryotic microbial systems.

Infectious Disease

Infection, development and morphogenesis of plant and animal pathogenic fungi; parasitology; drug discovery, comparative genomics, and antibiotic development.

Chair

Professor Neil A. R. Gow, Department of Molecular & Cell Biology, Institute of Medical Sciences, University of University of Aberdeen, Foresterhill, Aberdeen AB25 2ZD
Tel +44 (0)1224 555879; email n.gow@abdn.ac.uk

Chair-elect

Dr Peter E. Sudbery
Tel (+44) (0)114 222 6186; email p.sudbery@sheffield.ac.uk

Members