A review of the scientific productivity of fungal stress research has been published recently in the prestigious journal Fungal Biology. It ranked both the institutions and the researchers active in this field. Two of our professors from the Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Microbiology of the Institute of Biotechnology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Debrecen, István Pócsi and Tamás Emri, were ranked highly: fifth and seventh respectively. The University of Debrecen was ranked second in industrial fungal stress biology and sixth in general fungal stress biology.
“This is indeed a pleasant surprise and a great pleasure for us that justifies the effort of the past thirty years. We do research on human, plant and insect pathogenic fungi as well as industrial microorganisms. We can boast of an extensive network of national and international contacts and collaborations, as also indicated by the article mentioned above. As the ranking shows, China and the United States are the most efficient competitors in our field. Due to the differences in financial support conditions, competing with them is only possible if we focus on a well-defined research topic in a relatively narrow segment, concentrating our efforts and exploiting our network of contacts,” said István Pócsi.
Professor Pócsi highlighted that, in addition to their basic research activities, they always keep looking for applied research opportunities.
“One of our research objectives is to increase the stress tolerance of industrial fungi. Our results have the potential to produce biological control products, to make the probiotics that are commercially available safer. Our focus area has always been the development of new antifungal agents and treatments, and the past decade has also been devoted to how to control the proliferation of mycotoxin-producing fungi, which are becoming more and more prevalent due to climate change,” said István Pócsi.
As the professor pointed out, with the creation of the HUN-REN-DE Fungal Stress Biology Research Group in 2022, their research activities also reached a new level. In the research group, elements of the stress response system are investigated from the aspect of possible future targets for the development of antifungal agents. Significant progress has been made, among other things, in the study of the transcription factors that coordinate the stress response system and in the understanding of fungal cell death processes.
The researchers at the University of Debrecen are currently involved in a number of applications for funding: they have NKFIH research proposals, but they are also involved in a Horizon Europe tender while, in cooperation with Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute (Utrecht, The Netherlands), they participate in the development of an international project.
According to Tamás Emri, Head of the Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Microbiology, the study of fungal stress responses is interesting not only because it can be used to study how fungi adapt to the environment that they are familiar with, but also to investigate how they can survive in a completely new situation.
“To illustrate this through a topical issue, for example, at the International Space Station, not only our astronauts can survive, but stowaway fungi as well. Some of the latter thrive, multiply and may cause serious problems. It is not just that they mutate on the space station to acquire traits that help them survive but, for a start, they are also born with a gene pool that allows them to thrive in this unknown world. It is a really fascinating question why fungi that evolved on Earth are so comfortable in space. However, we could also consider the case of opportunistic human pathogenic fungi, many of which are not thought to infect humans because it is necessary for their survival. As these species live in our close environment, they inevitably enter our bodies. Our immune systems do everything they can to keep them from thriving and make them die, but still, if certain conditions are met, they survive and cause fatal diseases. To be quite frank, we would not expect fungi to survive in such an extreme situation in the human body, and still be able to adapt to it. Investigating the stress responses of fungi is a very fortunate area of research, both because it attracts researchers as it poses exciting questions, and because it is attractive to research funders since we are trying to address questions that could have practical benefits in the long run. And when these two interests are present for good, excellent results can emerge,” said the professor from the Faculty of Science and Technology.
Find the overview of scientific productivity in the field of fungal stress research here.
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