International vistors tour FABI 2025-06-06
Twenty five international delegates attending the Mycobiomics Conference at FABI were given a tour of the Institute by the founding Director, Prof. Mike Wingfield on 2 June. The group were given a first-hand account of the establishment of FABI and its growth and development into a world class research Institute. Many of these stories and several more are captured in the history of FABI “The Road to Research Excellence: The FABI Story" written by Mike for the FABI 20th Anniversary Symposium in 2018. Given their interest in fungi and fungal biodiversity, a focus of the tour was on the FABI Culture Collection (CMW and CMW-IA) that includes approximately 65000 strains collected over a period of approximately 40 years. Nicole van Vuuren, Curator of the collection noted, for example that the genomes of some 8000 strains have been sequenced, the data for which are now being integrated into the studies of numerous graduate students. The group was entertained to a number of interesting vignettes linked to items in the FABI Museum and the FABI mycological stamp collection.