T. Y. James Lab
Biological Sciences Building, Rm. 4050
1105 North University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1085

News:

Jan. 1, 2025

Congratulations to Dr. Tami Carvalho on receiving a fellowship from the Institute for Global Change Biology to continue her research on amphibian chytridiomycosis. Her work will investigate the role of host and climate on pathogen diversity in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

Oct. 31, 2024

Thank you to Dr. Nelson Menolli, Jr. visiting from the Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia (IFSP), who spent a week in the lab sequencing mushroom genomes and sharing his knowledge of the biodiversity and cultivation of Brazilian mushrooms.

Aug. 10, 2024

Mycotics are back online after moving the website to a new platform. There have been some changes.

We welcome new PhD students Quinn Moon and Gayathri Venkatraman!

Congratulations to recent graduates Dr. Alden Dirks (PhD Biology 2024) and Evelyn Faust (BSc Microbiology 2023)

Feb. 20, 2023

Congratulations to PhD candidate Alden Dirks who published his first thesis chapter on the distribution of the toxin gyromitrin in the false morel genus Gyromitra recently in Mycologia!

Link to paper here

Jan. 10, 2023

Michigan Mycology welcomes two new postdocs, Dr. Yi-Hong Ke and Dr. Saleh Rahimlou. Yi-Hong will be working on the evolution of mitotic recombination and single cell genomics, and Saleh will be working on metagenomics of Malassezia and mycoviruses. Welcome!

Sept. 6, 2022

New paper on chytrid fungal phylogeny and ploidy evolution published. Thanks to all U. Michigan folks for their hard work: Kevin Amses, Rabern Simmons, Kensuke Seto, Gustavo Jerônimo, Anne Bonds, Alisha Quandt and William Davis. Thanks also to Jason Stajich, Joyce Longcore, Joey Spatafora, Nick Buchler, the fungal folks at the Joint Genome Institute and many others for their contributions to this fun (and long-running) collaboration.

June 12, 2022

There are still a few slots left in our chytrid workshop! We are hosting a chytrid workshop this summer at the University of Michigan Biological Station. Please follow this link to find more details. It will be a fun place to spend a week learning more about this group and getting hands on practice working with these organisms.

May 23, 2022

Registration is now open for the Annual User Meeting, this time in person at the new JGI facility in Berkeley, California. The program looks exciting with Jennifer Doudna delivering a keynote lecture!

Feb. 1, 2022

Thanks to Dr. Rabern Simmons for his 5 dedicated years as a postdoc in the Michigan Mycology group. Known as an early riser, chytrid cultural authority, and Nanopore Guru, we tip our hat to you. Rabern is now the Curator of Fungi at Purdue University. Shown here is a picture with PhD advisor Dr. Joyce Longcore.

Oct 1, 2021

Welcome to new postdoc Dr. Tamilie Carvalho (second from left) from Felipe Toledo’s lab. Tamilie will be working on development of Hymenochirus as a model system to study aquatic symbioses.

May 18, 2021

Congratulations to Dr. Kevin Amses who successfully defended his PhD thesis: “Single Cell Sequencing Facilitates Genome-enabled Biology in Uncultured Fungi and Resolves Deep Branches on the Fungal Tree of Life”. Kevin is now off to work with Prof. Jessie Uehling at Oregon State University. Good luck and congratulations Kevin!

Oct. 6, 2020

Our new paper on the CZEUM collection has just been published in IMA Fungus. Congratulations Rabern!

Sept 8, 2020

Dr. Myers’ publication on mycoviruses in early diverging fungi is now available in mBio.

News Archive

We use genomic data to understand the life cycles and mating systems of fungi. In a recent paper, we used genome sequences of zoosporic and zygomycete fungi to infer that many branches in the fungal kingdom actually show a diploid-dominant life cycle, contrary to what is assumed in textbooks. These results were published in a paper led by former PhD student Kevin Amses and postdoc Rabern Simmons.