Jonathan Schilling's lab

9-1-09 There is a position open in the lab studying brown rot fungi and their potential in biotechnology, if you are interested in graduate study and also if you are seeking a post doc. Inquire with Jonathan.

9-1-09 Welcome Zewei Song. Zewei joins us from Yunnan Province, China where his work at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden focused on coarse woody debris dynamics. His Ph.D. work will be funded by the Mellon Foundation grant and we are collaborating w/ the Sadowsky lab on this project.

8-28-09 Jake Tewalt successfully delivered his Masters seminar and has earned his M.S. degree on his IREE- and DOE-funded brown rot research. Congratulations on that and on landing a great job at Poet!

7-30/31-09 The lab took its first retreat to Cloquet Forestry Center to harvest some field wood samples, spot a world record porcupine, climb a slippery fire tower, isolate some fungi, and grill burgers.

6-22-09 Jonathan spoke about the Biodeterioration Diagnostics Database (Rot Bot) at the co-sponsored FPS/SWST annual meeting in Boise, Idaho. Some good discussion and a good start for the Rot Bot.

6-4-09 Stephanie King is doing research for her World Food Prize Fellowship in the Schilling lab this June and August in Minnesota, while spending July in Taiwan. Her work is on utilization of non-edible crops in bioprocessing, notably those that do not compete with food crops for land.

5-23-09 Jonathan lectured on brown rot fungi and oxalate-cation dynamics at IRG-WP in Beijing, China in the Biology Working Party. He was also the conveynor of this session with 6 international presenters, many giving talks about Fenton chemistry and brown rot.

4-29-09 Jacob Inda 'Jinda' received a UROP Fellowship for summer 2009 to work on copper tolerance in our lab. We are looking forward to a solid project. Nice work!

4-27-09 Jake Tewalt gave his BBE graduate seminar series lecture to a crowd in 225 Kaufert Lab. He did well & received useful feedback during this process, which included a poster presentation. Great job!

4-20-09 Schilling participated in the Colley/Hartford Research Symposium at the AWPA annual meeting in San Antonio, TX, speaking about oxalate crystallization dynamics.

4-16-09 The brown rot DOE Biomass Initiative project was reviewed with high marks after it was presented at the Thermochemical Platform review in Denver, CO.

3-2-09 Jonathan spoke to a large audience at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN about Serpula lacrymans and for the first time spoke to the bearing of current research on historical rot problems in wooden ships.

2-5-09 PhD opening (position filled). The aims of this work are to use molecular tools to monitor fungal colonization dynamics in wood and then apply the techniques to field trials.

2-4-09 Jonathan spoke and later joined a panel discussion on technology-enhanced learning on the East Bank. The video can be found here.

2-3-09 The DOE-USDA brown rot research is featured in the Winter 2009 edition (link) of the CFANS magazine Solutions.

1-20-09 We have a new student in the lab, Brooke Jacobson a Chemistry major, who is doing directed research in the lab this Spring. Welcome, and welcome back Jacob Inda, our Biochemistry major.

12-19-08 Jonathan was awarded a 4-year Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Junior Faculty grant through the Conservation and the Environment Program. The work will focus on the unique role of wood-degrading fungi in northern, particularly boreal forest ecosystems. This grant program is currently closing to new proposals, and its status is updated on the Foundation's website.

12-18-08 The Schilling lab presented a couple of posters at the E3 Conference in St. Paul, MN.

9-8-08 Jake presented on behalf of the lab at the Biobased Industry Outlook conference in Ames, Iowa.

8-1-08 Jonathan was named Associate Fellow in the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment (IonE).

7-30-08 Jake talked about his research at the American Phytopathological Society (APS) annual meeting.

6-26-08 Jake Tewalt, Ben Carrier, and Adam Norcutt, along with Lili Zhou from Dr. William Tze's lab group took first place at the Wood Bowl competition at the Forest Products Society (FPS) meeting in St. Louis. Jake and Adam also presented posters representing the lab. Nice job people!

6-1-08 Jonathan returned from his travels co-chairing a sapstain symposium at AWPA in Portland, OR and giving a talk and at the IRG-WP conference in Istanbul, Turkey. The Istanbul talk also served as the first 'call for contributions' for the Biodeterioration Diagnostics Database.

5-6-08 Dr. Sarah Watkinson from University of Oxford was hosted by Jonathan and gave two lectures related to brown rot fungi for the Microbial and Plant Genomics Institute (MPGI) and the BBE department. Sarah is author of the book The Fungi along with a long list of well-cited publications in the field of mycology.

4-17-08 Adam Norcutt and Kaitlyn Bissonnette presented their UROP projects at the Undergraduate Research Symposium on the East Bank in Minneapolis in a very well-attended poster session. Click here for Adam's pic and here for Kaitlyn's pic. Nice job!

3-30-08 Jonathan was awarded a technology-enhanced learning (TEL) grant for 2008-2009. The grant will fund the creation of the Biodeterioration Diagnostics Database, will send Jonathan to Istanbul, Turkey in May, and will provide the biodeterioration community a venue to view and share case studies.

3-6-08 The lab has been awarded a USDA DOE Biomass Research and Development Initiative grant. The project 'Lignin as a facilitator, not a barrier, during saccharification by brown rot fungi' was funded in full, with Schilling as the PI and with Co-PI's from the Univeristy of Minnesota and from Purdue University. The project is also supported by several prominent commercial partners. Here is the official press release and here is the story in UMN News.

1-16-08 Shona presented two posters on brown rot fungal mechanisms and the potential to use them as a guide to successful bioprocessing during a poster session for XCel Energy in Minneapolis. See Shona's picture here.

1-10-08 We have an undergraduate research position open in the lab for a qualified and motivated student. E-mail Jonathan. This is filled (2-25-08)...welcome to Ben Carrier.

1-3-08 Welcome to Dr. Shona Duncan, a new post doc in the lab. She is here from U. Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand, and we are proud to have her. She is funded by our Discovery Grant (see C&P).

12-9-07 Welcome Gilad Ori Sagiv to the world and as honorary 'lab baby'. Yasmin's boy was born on the 6th around 11pm and weighs 3.4 kg.

11-27-07 Jonathan presented preliminary work on brown rot mechanisms and potential for utilization in biofuels production at the E3 conference hosted by Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment (IREE). This work was supported by IREE.

11-16-07 Two undergraduate students, Adam Norcutt and Kaitlyn Bissonnette, received Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) awards for 2008. These are competitive awards that fund their own research in the lab, and their project ideas are excellent. Congratulations!

10-16-07 Jake presented his work on brown rot cellulase systems versus those of T. reesei and A. niger and the importance of synergy between early modifications and these enzyme suites at the BBE Advisory Council in St. Paul.

Contact me if you have questions or interests in working in the lab.

Others, especially undergraduates, interested in working in the Schilling Lab are welcomed and encouraged to contact me. Undergraduates are strongly encouraged and will likely be supported who wish to do Directed Research in the lab. The same is true for students with UROP projects in mind or with interest in our work.

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