Prof. Wieland Meyer - new director of the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute
Medical
mycologist Prof. Wieland Meyer will be the new director of the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute, Utrecht, The Netherlands, an
Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Originally
from Germany, Prof. Meyer is currently a Dean of Research at the Faculty of
Health Sciences at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, and Professor of
Molecular Medical Mycology at Curtin Medical School at the same university and
at Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Prof. Meyer
is an internationally recognised scientist with a long record of accomplishment
of over 35 years of research and over 20 years of teaching experience. His
research places him at the intersection of medical and environmental mycology –
the study of fungi. He studies how fungi can make people and animals sick on a
molecular level, but at the same time conducts research into the evolution,
genetic properties, and epidemiology of fungi.
In his new
role, Prof. Meyer will work to strengthen the national and international
reputation of the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute as the
authority in all fields of mycology. For example, he wants to manifest the
institute as a global centre for biological resources. He sees a leading role
for the Westerdijk in determining reference genomes for all fungal species
currently stored in the world-renowned collection of the institute to form the
basis for phylogenetic studies of the fungal kingdom, clinical diagnosis,
understanding pathogenicity and antifungal resistance, product discovery and
applications in industry. He also wishes to continue the innovative work
underway in the field of database and software development in order to bundle
all possible scientific data associated with the fungal strain stored in the
collection and make them available to the widest possible audience. He wants to
start collaborations in the field of outreach and education with universities
and museums.
After
obtaining his PhD at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, Prof. Meyer
worked as a researcher in Germany, the United States, Australia, France, and
Brazil, where he is still a visiting professor at the Fundación Oswaldo Cruz
(FIOCRUZ) in Rio de Janeiro. He held various leading positions in Sydney and
currently oversees the research of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin
University in Perth. He also leads the global mycological community as the president
of the International Mycological Association (IMA).
His
research group studies yeasts species within the Cryptococcus neoformans/Cryptococcus
gattii species complex, which can cause lung and brain infections in humans
and animals. He also heads an antifungal resistance survey of Aspergillus
fumigatus strains in twelve Latin American countries. Prof. Meyer already
collaborates with researchers from the Westerdijk Institute on projects
involving DNA barcoding, a technique that identifies species based on short DNA
fragments, for which he set up a global reference database within the
International Society of Human and Animal Mycology (ISHAM). These reference
sequences form an integral part of the Atlas of Medical Fungi and are used
globally as references for molecular clinical diagnosis of mycoses.
Prof. Meyer
will start as director of the Westerdijk Institute on 1 July 2023. He succeeds
Prof. Pedro Crous, who has led the institute since 2002. Prof. Crous will
remain associated with the institute as group leader.
The
Westerdijk Institute
The
Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute is a research institute of the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences that maintains a world-renowned
microbial biological resource centre of living fungi, yeasts and bacteria. It
is also a centre of expertise for mycology (the study of fungi and moulds).
The
Westerdijk Institute studies fungal biodiversity in the widest possible sense.
Its researchers develop and utilise a broad range of techniques for studying
fungal biology, ecology, and genetics. The institute’s unique collection of
more than 100,000 living strains of fungi puts it at the top of the global list
of mycology research institutes. The Westerdijk Institute provides answers to
socially relevant questions concerning health, agriculture and industry.
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