Microfungus Collection and Herbarium

UAMH Centre for Global Microfungal Biodiversity

Roles

  • Isolate and solicit fungal cultures of scientific interest. 
Our Roles
  • Catalogue culturable fungi and annotate the accessions through imaging and other methods. 
  • Preserve living cultures by freeze-drying and freezing in liquid nitrogen or by other methods. 
  • Identify, verify and characterize isolates using classical and molecular techniques. 
  • Prepare herbarium specimens consisting of dried colonies to back-up the living cultures. 
  • Distribute cultures to researchers and assist them to select strains.
  • Provide professional advice and personal service customized to individual user needs.
  • Archive strain data in a database and disseminate information to users through online and print catalogues.
  • Educate through academic teaching of undergraduate and graduate students, scientific workshops and individual professional training.
  • Maintain high quality assurance standards for a microbial collection.
  • Cooperate with other collections through participation in the World Federation of Culture Collections (WFCC) and the World Data Centre for Microorganisms (WDCM), Canadensys and other networks.
  • Maintain a research program with a focus on systematics, medical and veterinary mycology, indoor air quality and culture collection management.