Major research interests

• Molecular evolution and phylogeny of fungi, focusing on yeasts and filamentous fungi by using the rDNA gene clusterand independently evolving genes, such as the actin gene, for extensive phylogenetic studies.

• Evaluation of different gene trees to generate concurrent or in-concurrent phylogenetic analysis of related fungal species. What is the value of a gene tree compared with a species tree?

• Participate in the internationally coordinated phylogenetic research projects: "Tree of Life" and specifically in the project "Assembling the Fungal Tree of Life (AFTOL)" funded by the National Science Foundation (USA), through adding new sequence-based phylogenetic information on pathogenic fungi. The overall goal of the "Tree of Life" project is to establish multilocus sequencing-based phylogenetic relationships for all living organisms.

• Evaluation of genes as potential targets for Barcoding (in collaboration with Dr. V. Robert, Centraalbureau voorSchimmelcultures, Utrecht, The Netherlands).

• Establishment of a reference database of molecular data (sequencing, RFLP, PCR-fingerprinting data) as a foundation for an automated fungal ID system based on molecular characteristics using the computer program BioloMICS (BioAware, Belgium and Centraalbureau voorSchimmelcultures, Utrecht, The Netherlands).  The overall aim of this project is to establish a molecular based fungal identification system, that will be accessible internationally via the world-wide-web through mirror web sites at several institutions in the world including the University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, the CBS, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

• Studying the biodiversity of yeasts in tropical and temperate flowers in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Madagascar, France and its ?départements et territoires d'outre-mer? such as French Guyana, New-Caledonia and La Réunion (international collaborations).

• Developing molecular methods for the direct identification of human pathogenic fungi from clinical specimen, without prior culturing, using automated DNA extraction, Real Time PCR and Sequencing.

• Comparative genomics within the Cryptococcus neoformans complex to provide solutions to critical questions and issues of speciation and evolutionary divergence and to identify open reading frames (ORFs) responsible for the distinct epidemiological and clinical features associated with each of the varieties (in collaboration with J. Kronstad, University of British Columbia, Canada, J. Kwon-Chung, NIH, USA, J. Heitman, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA).

• Investigation of the molecular basis of pathogenicity of fungi and the switch from an environmental opportunistic fungus to a primary pathogen, which could be caused by the accumulation of mutations during evolution and/or microevolution and lateral gene transfer (in collaboration with J. R. Perfect, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA).

• Development and application of microsatellite based DNA markers for epidemiological and population genetic studies in human pathogenic fungi Cryptococcus neoformans (in collaboration with Y. Mikami, Chiba University, Japan) and Candida albicans.

• Global molecular epidemiological and population genetic studies of the C. neoformans species complex though the application of PCR-fingerprinting, AFLP and MLST analysis and newly developed microsatellite based DNA markers (international collaboration).

• Development of molecular tools (e.g. isolation of strong promoters, construction of vector systems and developing a transformation system) to study virulence determinants and other genes of biological importance in C. neoformans var. gattii, which have not been available previously.

• Developing a Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) system for Scedosporium species (in collaboration with L. Delhaese, Pasteur Institute in Lille, France) and the Cryptococcus neoformans species complex (in collaboration with A. Litvintseva, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA and M. Fisher, Imperial College, London, UK).

Wieland Meyer's Profile