Fungal biodiscovery: Strategies to explore fungal secondary metabolite potential

Fungi have been an inspiring source of diverse secondary metabolites, with several metabolites developed as pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. Despite the past success, fungal biodiscovery has been challenged with the excessive rediscovery of known metabolites. This study focused on investigating four selected strategies to explore fungal secondary metabolite potential to discover novel and bioactive metabolites. This includes bioactivity-guided isolation, varying cultivation conditions, application of advance analytical techniques and microbial co-cultivation. In this talk, the application of chemical and bioactivity profiling, isolation, and characterisation of new metabolites from fungi will be discussed.

Pradeep completed his PhD in natural product chemistry at Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), the University of Queensland in 2019. After completing his PhD, Pradeep joined GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany, as a postdoctoral research fellow in analytical chemistry. His current research focuses on developing a non-target workflow for rapid screening and identification of new per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in human biomonitoring.