{"id":104,"date":"2026-03-30T12:43:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/?p=104"},"modified":"2026-05-19T11:05:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T10:05:39","slug":"network-seminar-series-visiting-speaker-spring-term","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/2026\/03\/30\/network-seminar-series-visiting-speaker-spring-term\/","title":{"rendered":"Network Seminar Series | VISITING SPEAKER, Spring Term"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_105\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-105\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-105\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/files\/2026\/03\/photo-26-Mar-26-5-300x198.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-105\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yen-Ping Hsueh (Max Planck Institute for Biology T\u00fcbingen, Germany)<br \/>&#8216;Predatory Fungal\u2013Nematode Interactions Across Scales&#8217;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Network welcomed <a href=\"https:\/\/fungalwormlab.imb.sinica.edu.tw\/\">Yen-Ping Hsueh (Max Planck Institute for Biology T\u00fcbingen)<\/a> as Keynote Speaker on Thursday 26 March at the Flowers Building, South Kensington Campus.<\/p>\n<p>Yen-Ping presented (together with superb visuals) <em><b>Predatory Fungal\u2013Nematode Interactions Across Scales<\/b><\/em>.\u00a0 Imagine a microscopic world where fungi set traps, lure prey with chemical bait, and even poison worms through their nerve endings.\u00a0 It sounds like science fiction, but it&#8217;s happening in soil, everywhere in the world.\u00a0 Yen-Ping Hsueh presented how her lab is unravelling the predatory playbook of carnivorous fungi using two fascinating model systems.\u00a0 The first, <em>Arthrobotrys oligospora<\/em>, is a nematode-trapping fungus that eavesdrops on its prey&#8217;s chemical signals to spring sticky, lasso-like traps.\u00a0 This fungus deploys a specialised arsenal of proteins for efficient capture, and even producing a chemical compound called (MMB) that lures the model nematode\u00a0<em>C. elegans<\/em> to its doom.\u00a0 The second, the oyster mushroom\u00a0<em>Pleurotus ostreatus<\/em>, takes an even more sinister approach: it attacks from the nematode&#8217;s sensory cilia and triggers rapid neuronal cell death.\u00a0 This strategy is aided by tiny lollipop-shaped structures on the hyphae called toxocysts, which are loaded with the volatile compound 3-octanone.\u00a0 Together, these systems reveal that fungi have evolved strikingly diverse and sophisticated strategies to hunt their preys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Network welcomed Yen-Ping Hsueh (Max Planck Institute for Biology T\u00fcbingen) as Keynote Speaker on Thursday 26 March at the Flowers Building, South Kensington Campus. Yen-Ping presented (together with superb visuals) Predatory Fungal\u2013Nematode Interactions Across Scales.\u00a0 Imagine a microscopic world where fungi set traps, lure prey with chemical bait, and even poison worms through [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1962,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11,6,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotechnology-and-engineering","category-ecology-evolution-and-environment","category-events","category-pathogenesis-of-fungal-diseases","category-seminar-series-visiting-speaker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1962"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-fungal-science-network\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}