Recipient: Helmholtz-Zentrum für Infektionsforschung GmbH (Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research – HZI) 
Funding: GO-Bio initial (01/10/2022 to 30/09/2023, EUR 99,995)

Project description:

Stand fungi, which include most of the hat-forming fungi, produce interesting and unique secondary substances that can be used, for example, as active ingredients in therapeutics for various diseases. Prominent examples of such secondary substances of fungi are pleuromutilines, which gave rise to the last class of antibacterial antibiotics placed on the market, and strobilurins, one of the most important classes of agrochemical fungicides.

The secondary substances of mushrooms are already widely used in traditional Asian medicine and are sold worldwide in various forms and compositions as dietary supplements. They are also in clinical development as anticancer agents. In addition, they seem to be promising for the development of new therapeutics for immune, metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases. 

In the BASIDOMICS-2 project, different "OMICS" methods (molecular biological methods such as genomics, proteomics or metabolomics) will be used to identify and characterise several classes of molecules in fungi at the same time (e.g. proteins and genes). This BASIDIOMICS technology platform is intended to be attractive to many user groups in both science and industry by enabling access via an IT network to the information obtained within the project on secondary substances of the analysed fungi.