Javier Tabima Restrepo
Clark University, MA·Ecology & Evolution
Fungi break down material in nature, and they make chemicals that are useful in medicine and farming. Many of these chemicals are secondary metabolites, compounds that are not needed for basic growth but help an organism compete and survive.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Genetics
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
Basidiobolus
fungi
mycology
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Reconstruct the evolutionary relationships among Basidiobolus species, using genome sequences from fungal samples collected around the world.
- Explore how secondary metabolite genes, which make specialized chemical compounds, vary across Basidiobolus species, and test whether some were acquired from bacteria by horizontal gene transfer.
- Examine how natural selection and other evolutionary forces shape secondary metabolite genes within Basidiobolus populations, using population genetics analyses of sequenced genomes.
More about the research
Basidiobolus is an unusual group of microscopic filamentous fungi. These fungi live in soil, water, rotting leaves and even animal guts, and they make a large number of unique compounds. Some of the genes behind these compounds may have come from bacteria through horizontal gene transfer, the passing of genes between unrelated organisms. If confirmed, this would be a rare example of gene sharing across different kingdoms of life.
Why it matters
Basidiobolus makes many unusual chemical compounds. Understanding which genes produce them, and where those genes came from, could lead to new discoveries in medicine, agriculture and biotechnology. It also sheds light on how genes move between bacteria and fungi.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Emile Gluck-Thaler
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Genetics
Determine how rates of horizontal Starship transfer between fungi change in response to different environmental cues, using a newly developed laboratory transfer assay.
Nancy Keller
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine the chemical products of isocyanide synthase (ICS) gene clusters that carry unusual enzymes or target proteins, using molecular and chemical analysis of fungi found by the lab's genome-mining pipeline.
Reed Stubbendieck
Oklahoma State University, OK·Microbiology & Immunology
Culture Dolosigranulum pigrum from nasal swabs and test its inhibition of multiple Staphylococcus aureus strains with co-culture plate assays under conditions mimicking the human nose.
The school
Clark University: 1 labs on PI Pages, $13M a year on research, 21 research doctorates a year.
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