Subject: Mycological GUT

From: [email-masked] (Mark Spear)
Date: 24 Jul 96 20:10:39 -0700

The holy grail of Physics is the General Universal Theory that pretty 
much explains everything.  Could we approach something like this for 
fungi?   I anyone interested in helping to build something that might 
look like a flow chart or a state diagram for a filamentous fungal 
hyphae.

For example the first step might be a spore germling.  From this 
several pathways could be availible including many not found in the 
standard references.  We have observed that if you put mycelia on 
weak media it will grow with one morphology, on a rich medium will 
provode another morphology.  Also some conditions lead to stroma, 
others to fruiting behavior.  On top of all this there we can 
demonstrate that we con convert mycelium from one 
morphology/phyiological state to another.

I think this is a rich vein of endeavor for mycologists in general 
and those of us interested in edible fungi especially.  Any agreement?

    ---- Mark

		[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Keith Klein)
Date: 25 Jul 1996 14:25:28 GMT

>The holy grail of Physics is the General Universal Theory that pretty 
..........
>and those of us interested in edible fungi especially.  Any agreement?
Mark:
My colleague Ernie Boyd and I have been working on something like this for the last
three years. We are trying to get the math right for a reaction-diffusion
mechanism for asymmetric growth. The symmetrical growth problem is much easier
to do. I recently published a review on this topic in: Patterns in Fungal
Development, S. Chiu and D.Moore, eds. Cambridge University Press. I haven't 
seen a copy of the book yet myself, but it should be out any day!
Will you be attending the MSA meetings next week? If so, look me up!
Keith Klein
Department of Biological Sciences
Mankato State University
Mankato, MN 56002-8400 USA
e-mail: [email-masked] OR [email-masked]