NAPOLI, Italy  

February  10-11, 2025

FOREWORDS

The Organizing committee of MARIFUNDIVE 2024, the first international workshop in “Marine Fungi: Diversity and Applications”, invites scientists working on marine fungi to present their advanced research of this important topic.

The workshop is scheduled in the frame of the project “Production and characterization of new bioactive molecules against emerging and/or multidrug-resistant pathogens by neglected poly-extremophilic marine fungi (MYCOSEAS)” financed by the E.U “Next Generation EU” by the PRIN 2022 framework (Project n°: 2022MPTT35).

Contributions, which will be selected for oral or poster presentations, can regard the following topics: taxonomy & phylogenesis; mycobiota composition, structure & functionality; enzymes & metabolites; biotechnological applications.

All selected contributions will be published on the  extended abstrac.

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Marine fungi constitute a very composite ecological group including different taxonomical entities, mainly represented by Ascomycota, but also by Basidiomycota, Chytridiomycota, Microsporidia and Cryptomycota. The marine fungal diversity has been estimated over 10000 species, but till now, only less than 1500 species have been described, representing only a small fraction of the estimated marine fungal diversity. The marine environment is extremely complex being characterized by great variability of physical parameters including salinity and pH, low water activity, temperature and hydrostatic pressure. Moreover, it shows general oligotrophic conditions. The fungal diversity in marine habitats cannot be accounted to single factors: many parameters control the fungal distribution, activity and abundance, due to their broad variations. To cope with the stressing environment, marine fungi have evolved a metabolic diversity that is often quite different from their terrestrial homologues. Recently, the interest in marine and/or marine-derived fungi has been growing due to their unusual or even unique secondary metabolism allowing the discovery of new microbial strains, with unique characteristics, that can be possibly exploited for new bioactive molecules. Marine fungi, are a diversified source of bioactive metabolites that could be potentially used as new drugs. Nevertheless, they are somehow underrated and their chemical and biological diversity is still underestimated. Many new or scarcely studied (neglected species) taxa need to be carefully investigated to search new bioactive metabolites. In particular, new bioactive molecules from marine fungi can be used for medical purposes. In fact, a number medical problems are caused by microbial diseases for which treatment is still unavailable. Also, emerging and re-emerging pathogens represent great increasing medical and social concerns. In addition, widely increasing problems are caused by antibiotic resistant or multi-resistant known microbes. This continuously change the landscape of clinical microbiology that requires new therapeutic strategies and molecules. Moreover, among the bioactive molecules, enzymes obtained from marine environments could be particularly interesting for their possible new valuable chemical and catalytical features. However, marine environments are still scarcely exploited for new enzymes if compared with terrestrial ones. Still inadequate research has been done to screen marine microorganisms for their extracellular enzymes production; marine fungi have been even less investigated.