Hello, ResearchGate community,
I am a B.Sc. student in my third year taking Biology and Art. Through my schooling, I have discovered a passion for mycology and genetics! I was wondering if any fungal geneticists here could detail the educational route that led to your career and if anyone could impart any wisdom to an enthusiastic student.
Jubilee Connor
The field of Mycology is an interesting one. First of all you need to pray to God for direction.
Let me share my experience with you. initially I wanted to venture into the field of entomology during my undergraduate days at Tai Solarin University of Education but it took a frantic effort of a visiting Lecturer Prof. Jonathan S.G from University of Ibadan (who was then a Doctor but now a Professor and my supervisor) to open my eyes to the field of Mycology. I am glad today that I am a PhD student in Mycology/Fungi biotechnology.
Fields/study areas such as mushroom cultivation/mushroom studies, mycotoxicology, fungi biotechnology, environmental mycology, food mycology, applied mycology, medical mycology among several others are some of the fields under mycology. Interestingly genetical studies on fungi fit into any of these aforementioned fields. Therefore you have a great opportunity to succeed!!!
There are some species of fungi that have been explored and many others that have not been explored. You need to look into virgin areas, carve out a niche for yourself, do a thorough study and get ready to carry out researches.
You need to also understand the need for mycological studies in your environment and it's relevance to the development of your nation.
Surf the internet and read journals, literatures, proceedings that can widen your horizon in your chosen area. Also, check if there is a relationship between your field and some other fields similar to yours.
A mycologist is practical oriented. You must therefore be equipped practical wise. You must know how to handle equipments and how to carry out various practicals in the laboratory. Therefore get acquainted with the use of the equipments and materials that are relevant to mycology.
Attend conferences, seminars, workshops and symposia, that are relevant to mycology so as to add to your knowledge and to boost your academic profile. Get registered with mycology body in your country so as to enhance your network.
Lastly, pray and trust God for a fulfilling career.
I pray that you'll record huge success and breakthrough in your chosen career in Jesus name.
Best regards!!!
I was a practicing mycologist for almost 6 years during my PhD, and came about it quite haphazardly. I expressed interest in heat degradation of food in my cover letter and ended up in a toxicology lab which scored funding through studying heat stable mycotoxins. Most of the lab was analytical chemistry, but I became enamored by the magnificent Zeiss microscope in the corner and accepted a project which involved quantifying how much toxigenic fungi was present in the region, which in turn meant a lot of time identifying fungi under the microscope.
I was classically trained and identified fungi without any use of genetic testing. I am grateful for the experience and got to do wonderful things like single spore isolation under a microscope, but I did kind of know from the outset the skills weren't really that transferrable and my advisor was petrified that anonymous reviewers wouldn't approve my results without PCR confirmation (spoiler, he was wrong).
Along the way I kept trying to make sense of my noisy fungal count data, found all the classical statistical methods to be garbage, and discovered Bayesian statistics. I developed my own models and was quite successful, and learned that I was even better at being a programmer than I was as a mycologist. I then escaped academia and took a job in finance as my statistical skills were quite transferrable (and considerably more lucrative).
For me mycology was a wonderful chapter of my life, but not an ongoing narrative. I suspect nowadays nobody really does that weird esoteric photomicroscopy which captivates people into mycology in the first place anymore, and thanks to the ease of sequencing you could just identify species after doing a standard DNA extraction procedure. Maybe you could still isolate and cultivate strains of interest, which is super cool as the agar plates aren't inverted like bacteria and you make these weird miniature terrariums.
If you really wish to pursue research in mycology, your best bet is to look for plant pathology labs. Plant pathology is quite a diverse discipline, as a pathogen could also be bacteria or viruses or nematodes, but that is where mycology currently survives within academia (and most of the research is heavily genomics based). Just be aware that doing genetic analyses is really boring, and will likely erode whatever initial passion you may have for fungi.
Having worked in microbiology for years, including providing accredition sampling to meat testing. I found there was a limit to how far I could go. Having a life long love of learning I decided to go back to school and pursue a masters in counselling psychology.
Since opening a private practice www.mindsetsolutionscounselling.ca I have found my passion and can changed direction as my interests and knowledge increase.
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