Ken Haynes Travel award: closed for 2025 entries.

The application portal for the €500 Ken Haynes Travel award is now closed, thanks to all of this year's entrants.

Two candidates have been chosen, more details will follow.

17th European Conference on Fungal Genetics.

Almost 1,000 leading fungal researchers, scientists, and industry professionals from around the globe gathered in Dublin.

The event took place at the Dublin Convention Centre between March 2nd and 5th 2025.

For more information, click here.

IFS 2024: another successful IFS conference!

The 2024 IFS conference in Queen's University Belfast was a wonderful success. Some photographs and content are available here, to submit your own content please get in touch via the contact page.

Above: some of the Irish Fungal Society attendees at the dinner in the Ulster Museum. Photo credit: Steve Patmore.

Above: The Irish Fungal Society welcomes a new president: Professor Kevin Kavanagh steps down as IFS President and is replaced by Professor Johannes Wagener. From left: Professor Kevin Kavanagh, Dr Rebecca Owens, Dr Edel Hyland, Professor Johannes Wagener and Mr James Powell, IFS Committee at the IFS conference 2024, missing from photo: Luke Quill.

IFS Ken Haynes Travel award 2024 Awardee Report: Luke Quill.

The second Ken Haynes travel award winner from 2024 was Luke Quill from Trinity College Dublin.

Luke used his travel grant to travel to the 12^th International Conference on Mycorrhiza (ICOM-12) in Manchester, which was held in August 2024. To read about his experience at the conference, click here.

You can read about the experience of fellow 2024 awardee Joy Clarke by clicking here, and view the 2023 travel award recipients by clicking here.

 

IFS Ken Haynes Travel award 2024: First Awardee Report.

We have had an amazing response to the 2024 Ken Haynes travel award, thank you to all of the entrants.

The first award goes to Joy Clarke of Maynooth University. To read about her experience at the 20^th International Society of Mushroom Science (ISMS) congress in Nevada, USA, click here.

 

To see the awardees of the 2023 travel award, click here.

Read about FunDive, a pan-European project using citizen science, AI tools, sporocarp- and eDNA- based monitoring to provide a European fungal biodiversity map and enhance conservation efforts. click here for more information.

A workshop has been scheduled for the morning of day 3 of the International Mycological Congress in Maastricht (The Netherlands) on Tuesday, August 13th at 8 am, see the IMC schedule and website for more information

Gilead Announcement: Fellowship and Grants

The 2024 Gilead UK and Ireland Invasive Fungal Disease Fellowship and Medical Grants Programme is now open, click here for info.

Job opportunity in Trinity College Dublin

Assistant Professor in Clinical Microbiology, 5 year fixed term contract in the School of Medicine/Clinical Microbiology in Trinity College Dublin. See here for details.

Exciting PhD opportunity

Wageningen University have a PhD position open now for 4 yrs, fully funded (no tuition), in an English-speaking environment in Wageningen, The Netherlands. This project is focusing on reproductive barriers and the consequences of fungicide resistance. See here for details.

British Mycological Society's Annual Scientific Meeting 

Details have been released of this year's British Mycological Society Annual Scientific Meeting. It will be held at the Copthorne Hotel in Newcastle from the 12th to the 14th of September, see here for details. If you are a BMS member, then it's only £100 registration for PhD students and £200 for full members. This includes registration and all meals over 3 nights including a special event at the Wylam Brewery. The benefits of being a BMS member are extensive and in particular there are many grants available to fund conference/workshop attendance, undergraduate vacation scholarships, research grants up to 10K, funds to support seminar speakers etc - see here for details.

New article on brain-altering fungi

By Dr Edel Hyland, IFS Secretary and Senior Lecturer in Biochemistry & Fungal Biology, Queen's University Belfast

A new article on the health effects of fungal metabolites has been published on the popular science website "The Conversation", you can read it for free here.

 

Gilead UK and Ireland 2023 invasive fungal disease fellowship program 

The Gilead UK and Ireland 2023 invasive fungal disease fellowship program is now open. Application deadline is Saturday May 20th 2023. Details of the scheme can be found here.

The Gilead Fellowship and Medical Grants Programme supports local innovation and best practices in caring for people living with:

• HIV
• Cancer
• Invasive fungal disease
• Viral hepatitis

Since 2008, the programme has supported over 300 projects, leaving an important legacy in these areas. Applications are invited from healthcare and third sector organisations who are seeking funding for a project that aligns with the goals of the programme.

 

IFS Online 2022

The annual conference and AGM of the Irish Fungal Society took place online on June 22nd 2022.

Speakers included:

Dr. Aleeza Gerstein 'The evolution of antifungal/stress resistance in Candida spp.'

Dr Helen Grogan ‘Tackling mushroom disease control in an environmentally conscious world’

Prof. Nancy Keller 'Ecologically relevant secondary metabolites in fungal-bacterial communication'

Prof Martin Hoenigl ‘Covid associated fungal infections’

Dr. Jorge Amich‘Antifungal persistence in Aspergillus fumigatus"

Dr Tihana Bicanic ‘Aspergillosis in patients with severe influenza (AspiFlu)’

IFS Online 2021

The annual conference and AGM of the Irish Fungal Society took place online, on June 22nd 2021.

Speakers included:

Prof Liz Johnston: ‘Impact of increasing antifungal drug resistance on diagnostic and treatment strategies'.

Prof. Carol Munroe: ‘Targeting the fungal cell wall’

Prof. Fiona Doohan: ‘Molecular dissection of interactions between phytopathogenic fungi and barley’

Prof. Malcolm Richardson: ‘Pulmonary aspergillosis: community or hospital acquired?’

 

 

Irish Fungal Society 2019 meeting:

The 2019 meeting of the Irish Fungal Society took place on April 11th 2019 at the Belfast Waterfront.

The event took place as part of the 2019 Microbiology Society conference, which ran from Monday 8th to Thursday 11th April.

 

Eoin O’Connor wins the Journal of Fungi Prize:

Congratulations to Eoin O’Connor who won the Journal of Fungi prize for the best oral presentation at the Irish Fungal Society Annual Meeting. Eoin’s PhD is involves researchers from Maynooth University, Teagasc and Swansea University and is entitled “Visualisation of MVX RNA in the mycelium of Agaricus bisposus by fluorescence in situ hybridization”.

Post-influenzal triazole-resistant aspergillosis:

IFS members have recently published a study highlighting the risk of azole-resistant pulmonary aspergillosis following influenza. The findings have been published in Mycoses:

The findings have been published in Mycoses: https://doi.org/10.1111/myc.12770.

Journal of Fungi to sponsor prize at IFS2018:

The Journal of Fungi have generously offered to sponsor a prize for the best student or postdoc presentation at IFS 2018. There will be a prize of CHF200 for the best oral presentation.

Please send your abstracts to irishfungalsoc@gmail.com to enter.

The Journal of Fungi is a PubMed indexed open access journal.

The journal publishes all aspects of fungal research in a quarterly mode http://www.mdpi.com/journal/jof.

The Irish Fungal Society has been granted Charitable Status:

IFS has been granted Charitable status by the Irish Charities regulator, and the details of the Society are now publicly viewable on the Charities regulator website: https://charitiesregister.ie/.

Our Registered Charity Number (RCN) is 20154295.