"Filamentous fungi" refers to a type of fungus that has long, thread-like structures called filaments. These filaments help the fungus to grow and spread.
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Cox obtained a biology degree at the University of Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom and went on to do a biochemical engineering Ph.D. at the University of Birmingham where he measured the growth
of filamentous fungi in solid pastes using image analysis and fluorescence microscopy.
Besides mushrooms such as truffles or morels, also many yeast and mould fungi, as well as
other filamentous fungi belong to the Ascomycota phylum.
Now, researchers working with one of these microbes — an orange,
filamentous fungus known commonly as red bread mold — have discovered the genetic basis behind how their spores, or asexual reproductive units, communicate.
For example, tiny fragments of plastic can be accumulated in yeasts and
filamentous fungi.
To learn which survival strategy
the filamentous fungus Eurotium rubrum uses, a team of researchers led by Eviatar Nevo from the University of Haifa in Israel, Igor Grigoriev of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), and Gerhard Rambold, University of Bayreuth, Germany and their colleagues studied its genome.
The filamentous fungus Eurotium rubrum after 3 weeks of growing on 30 percent diluted Dead Sea water.
At the same time, a team led by Peter Philippsen of the University of Basel in Switzerland, sequenced the genome of
the filamentous fungus Ashbya gossypii.