Abu bakar Siddique

In 2018, I started working on mycoviruses (virus living in fungi) a new branch of virology and a integrated mycology. I am working as a mobility postdoc researcher at at Virology Department, Plant molecular biology institute, Biology centre in the Czech Republic. I am investigating novel mycoviruses and its function in the fungal host by using molecular sequencing, cloning and PCR techniques followed by modern sequencing technology (HTS Illumina and Sanger). We have successfully detected three novel mycoviruses and identified and charachterized one novel mycovirus from Hypomyces fungal parasites which is recently published: 'A mycoparasitic and opportunistic fungus is inhabited by a mycovirus'.(click on the line). Moreover, I am studying foreign domain of a alkaline mycovirus which we assumed as happens as via horizontal gene transfer. I am evaluating gene expression of viral SMC structure/domain of The alkalophilic fungus Sodiomyces alkalinus. 

Between 2013-17, I worked in Greifswald University at M. Unterseher’s lab as a PhD student. By using Sanger and direct sequencing (Illumina miseq), I could answer those biological questions which had not been possible to answer a decade ago. The effects of biotic and abiotic factors on environmental mycobiome in a large scale are now easily been drawn by this technique. During my PhD, I revealed a strong seasonal turnover in phyllosphere fungi in attitudinally distinct habitats over the two years of investigation, suggesting that the plant-fungal system not only responds to cyclic climatic conditions but depends as well on various parameters, e.g., geographic position, substrates age and surrounding vegetation.