Anthony Amend

@ikeryturralde.bsky.social

Our lab group posing with surfboards in front of diamondhead volcano

Our lab charges small waves!

At some point I saw a google sheet type list of funded grad-school opportunities (funded projects, not fellowships). Can anyone help me find this type of resource?

Yee Mosquito Lab Visit the post for more.

🦟🧪 ***I'm recruiting*** one student (M.S. or Ph.D.) to join my lab January 2026. Students need a 3.0 GPA and have an interest/experience in mosquito taxonomy, phenotypes, or ecology. Work on genetics/genomics is a plus. Deadline is 15 October 2025. US based students only. yeemosquitolab.org

Just don't look at the reader comments before trying to fall asleep...

Yup

Tremendous visit to National University of Singapore to discuss all things marine mycology. So excited to see the groundbreaking work coming out of this part of the world. Thanks to Ying Chang and lab for being such great hosts, hope to repay the favor soon!

P20 will soon be in the same boat. Our institutional guidance is to check the FAQs on the Provost's website on the "Evolving Federal Landscape". Good luck!

Thanks for coming all this way to see us!

Rich Humber was the PI, and I think Kathie Hodge was a grad student. I was in charge of growing, freeze-drying and maintaining isolates. Looking back on myself as a teenager I was the *WORST*, he was a saint for keeping me on. Apologies to all those receiving my contaminated cultures.

Latest stop on the media tour is undergrad Ronja Steinbach's interview on Public radio, explaining our experimental evolution of marine plastic degrading fungi.
www.hawaiipublicradio.org/the-conversa...

Five researchers carrying snorkel and field gear in beautiful Maunalua bay with Kokohead in the background

Winter fieldwork keeps us on our toes. Finding the smallest seagrass in the biggest ocean w/ @ikeryturralde.bsky.social and crew.

I was an undergrad GA in this lab 30 years ago. AMA!

Out now: enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Fun collaboration with @biotechdixon.bsky.social and great work by PhD Alejandro!

I guess we really do biotech now?!

No one seems to read the paper anymore, so you gotta put the good stuff up front!

Hah. That got cut off. We raced them against their unevolved counterparts and some of them got faster (by ~15%).

Ronja Steinbach holding a giant cluster of Macrocybe spectabilis

Undergrad Ronja Steinbach completed this study on her own while I was on sabbatical. Proof that great things can and do happen when I get out of the way of my students! Lots of exciting next steps, get in touch if you want to help leverage fungi to clean up our oceans.

After "evolving" the fungi on increasing concentrations of PU for multiple gen

fungi degrade PU as evidenced by a zone of clearance around the colony

We screened our marine fungal collection using a nifty clearance assay in which Polyurethane is provided as the sole C source. Remarkably, >60% or our screened isolates could clear some or most of the plate. This is a higher percentage than is reported in most studies using terrestrial fungi.

Me with a chunk of live rock in Kaneohe bay

Proud of our new paper in which we force-feed plastic to marine fungi, and watch them evolve to eat it more efficiently. Plastic is the fastest growing new habitat on our planet, fungi can help recycle it.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Hereʻs a link to the PDF:
amendlab.com/wp-content/u...

We’re excited to consider applicants for scholarships for our 2025 Biology of Vector-borne Diseases course! See our advert below. Please re-skeet to trainees and colleagues, as graduate students to faculty and practitioners across plant, animal and human health can apply.

A picture of Tom Volk wearing a tshirt that says Mycologists have questionable morels.

In what passes for tradition... from the late, great, and inimitable Tom Volk (alav ha-shalom) I present to you:

Fungal diseases that must be overcome to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner

botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/t...

Oh, yeah, weʻre hiring a lab manager too! Clever BS and MS applicants welcome.

A researcher on a boardwalk in a DANK hawaiian forest on Molokai.

RP PLS! Iʻm hiring 3 postdocs at U Hawaiʻi to study yeast diversity and evolution, marine fungi, and the genomics of microbiomes in experimental foodwebs. All of these projects have existing datasets and LATITUDE to pursue individual interests and "blue sky" ideas www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5d7u4...

🌱🔬The most time-intensive and difficult paper of my PhD is now published in #mSystemsJ! I'm proud of this work and also how much I've grown since I first started this experiment. Read on to learn more about how the functions of bacterial communities impact plant growth and health. 👇

Lenore Pipes is hiring a Postdoc and grad student at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa to study next gen classification and phylogenetic methods. Hitch yourself to a rising star in our department!
pipes-lab.pbrc.hawaii.edu/pdfs/jobs/Po...
pipes-lab.pbrc.hawaii.edu/pdfs/jobs/Gr...

I'm excited to be recruiting a funded Postdoc and Grad student at U Hawai'i to study the phylogenomics and ecology of Basidiomycete yeasts in strange tropical habitats and hosts, leveraging our unique ecological gradients. Come find me at #IMC12 to learn more.

Mycology class posing in front of fermenters in a brewery.

Mycology is better than yours! Class field trip to Honolulu Beerworks to wrap up the semester observing Saccharomyces in its native habitat. Thanks everyone for the awesome semester!

Forgot to tag #Fungal24

a group of 30 marine mycologists from 4 continents posing at Asilomar for a photo

And that's a wrap on the Second Occasional Meeting of Marine Mycology at lovely Asilomar. Can't wait to answer the burning question of how many fungi there are in the ocean. Think you know? Take our 30 second poll here: docs.google.com/forms/d/1dAm...

This group is the best!