6th IBSE Seminar by Dr. T.S. Suryanarayanan

IBSE is very pleased to introduce you all to our guest speaker Dr. T.S. Suryanarayanan. The title of his presentation will be: “Fungal endophytes: concerted effort needed for realizing their technological potential”. Dr. T.S. Suryanarayanan is the Director of from VINSTROM, RKM Vidyapith, Chennai https://rkmvc.ac.in/vinstrom/.

Abstract: Fungal endophytes are a constant constituent of plant microbiome. They may have played an essential role in the colonization of land by early plants nearly 425 M year ago. My lab has been studying the diversity, adaptations and economically important traits of endophytes for the past 30 years. It houses about 1700 endophyte strains isolated from different ecosystems of the country. It is well known that endophytes produce novel secondary metabolites of unprecedented molecular architecture vested with interesting pharmaceutical and other desirable bioactivities. Some endophytes even produce plant-derived metabolites. Of more recent discovery is that they also produce industrially important enzymes and enhance the abiotic and biotic stress tolerance of their host plants. Despite exhibiting such economically valuable traits, the technological use of endophytes have stopped with demonstrations. This lecture will highlight the gaps in our knowledge and bottlenecks that hinder progress in this line. It will underscore the immediate need for collaborations from scientists of different specializations for better exploiting the technological potential of this ecological group of fungi.