Fungal Comparative Genomics Lab

Professor Li-Jun Ma is interested in using the rich fungal genomic resources to explore the mechanisms that guide eukaryotic genome evolution. Dr. Ma is leading several comparative genomics projects to study the genetic determinants of fungal pathogenicity and host specificity, and participating in functional studies to test the hypotheses generated through genomic analyses.

Professor Wick, a Fulbright Scholar, is a devoted plant pathologist. His current research projects include late blight of potato, downy mildew of basil, Phytophthora blight of cucurbits, and population dynamics and management of nematodes in turf grasses.

Dr. Guo, completed his PhD through the Plant Pathology Graduate Program at Penn State, is focusing on functional genomics of Fusarium species using comparative approaches. He studies comparative transcriptomics using both microarray and RNA-seq data.

Andy studies: 1) interactions between wilt pathogen F. oxysporum and plant host arabidopsis thaliana; 2) genome evolution and pathogenicity development of F. oxysporum fsp. cubense, the causal agent of the Panama disease of banana. He is also managing the lab's IT infrastructure.

Andrea is studying population genetics of Peronospora belbahrii, which causes downy mildew on basil: an emerging and destructive disease.

Greg is interested in understanding the epigenomic influence on genome evolution of Fusarium species using bisulfite-sequencing.

Jing analyzed the patterns of sequence variation using genome-wide SNPs of 12 Fusarium oxysporum isolates that are pathogenic to different plant host.

Zhongyun investigated the sequence variation in correlation with the evolution of races among Fusarium oxysporum fsp. lycopersici isolates.

Michael worked on refining a protocol for efficient production of arabidopsis.

Vinay worked on a program for graphically presenting sequence alignments and obtaining statistical data from the graphs generated. During the initial few weeks, he also set up this website using basic HTML and CSS.

Buruk worked on MYcelia, a Chromosomal Feature Visualization Software that allows graphical representation of numerical features.

Lisa helped to establish Fusarium and Arabidopsis patho-system used for the transcriptomics study.

During his visit, professor Zhang focused on genomic analysis of Ustilago esculenta.