Wood Degradation and Ligninolytic Fungi

Mélanie Morel-Rouhier is a professor at Lorraine University in France. She did her phD on nitrogen uptake and assimilation in ectomycorrhizas and then moved on heavy metal transport in Arabidopsis thaliana during her post-doc. Since 2008, she is doing her research within the IAM Unit. She is interested in the detoxification systems developed by decaying fungi in the context of wood degradation. During her recent years, she focused on the functional, biochemical and structural characterization of the glutathione transferase superfamily. Thanks to the “omics” wave, she is now working on other molecular candidates explaining the stress resistance and adaptation of decay fungi to wood and in particular to the putative antifungal wood extractives.

Rodnay Sormani performed his thesis working on regulation of translation in plants under the supervision of Pr. C. Robaglia. As a post doc, he worked on the TOR signaling pathway in plants in the team of Dr. C. Meyer. During his second post-doc, he worked on the cell wall integrity signaling pathway in plants in the team of Dr. H. Hofte. He joined the « Université de Lorraine » as associate professor and as a member of IAM (UMR1136 UL INRAE) working on wood decay by white-rot fungi.