International Summer School for mycologists at Bialystok University of Technology

The participants of the International Mushroom Summer School 2022 were welcomed at Bialystok University of Technology by AssMarta Kosior-Kazberuk, DSc, PhD, Eng, – Rector of the Białystok University of Technology, Michał Bołtryk, PhD – Dean of the Faculty of Construction and Environmental Sciences, Sławomir Bakier, PhD – Director of the Institute of Forest Sciences, and Ewa Zapora, PhD – Project Coordinator. The guests were also introduced to the Faculty’s Vice-Dean for Student Affairs and Education – Prof. Jolanta Piekut, PhD, and Magdalena Yoka Yildiz, PhD.

Classes of the International Mushroom Summer School 2022 will run until 9 December 2022. During this time, lectures and workshops are planned to familiarise PhD students with the richness of fungal species and the uniqueness of their occurrence. Under the guidance of our staff in the laboratories of the INL Science and Research Centre in Hajnówka, young mycologists will learn how to properly obtain and taxonomically identify fungal material for scientific research. On Wednesday, 7 December, practical field classes will be held in the Białowieża Forest.

The International Summer School is a special event that also serves to integrate the mycological community. The venture brings together scientists who work professionally with fungi, which often leads to joint research projects and project applications. In December, during the second edition of the IMSS, we are hosting Prof. Lillian Barros from Portugal’s Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, a researcher in the TOP 1% of the most cited researchers in Europe (1% top cited researcher, h-index over 90).

One of the activities of the International Mushroom Summer School in the Science and Research Centre in Hajnówka will be to demonstrate how the Fungi Extract Bank – a unique collection of fungal extracts created at Bialystok University of Technology – functions.

– These young people are coming here to learn how to properly obtain fungal material, how to identify it and how to work properly in a microscope laboratory. They need this knowledge to carry out their own research, for example, related to their doctoral thesis topic. But we also use their stay in the Institute of Forest Sciences to promote our activities related to the study of fungi found in the Białowieża Forest. Together, we find out how much we still have to do in the matter of identifying mushroom species and studying their properties, including their medicinal properties, – says Ewa Zapora, PhD, from the Institute of Forest Sciences at Bialystok University of Technology.

It is worth recalling that scientists from Bialystok University of Technology have discovered, in collaboration with specialists from the Medical University of Bialystok, that an extract from (Heterobasidion annosum) could be an active ingredient in an anticancer drug. Their work has been patented by the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland under the name ‘Extract from a polypoid fungus, a composition containing such an extract and its use’.

The International Mushroom Summer School 2022 takes place within the framework of the PROM project, funded by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange. The first edition of the school was organised in June 2022. At that time, 20 university representatives from 14 countries (the USA, Nigeria, Republic of Benin, Georgia, Serbia, Ukraine, Armenia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Turkey, Estonia, Czech Republic, Sweden, Italy) came to the Institute of Forest Sciences of Bialystok University of Technology.

IMSS 2022 is an undertaking carried out in cooperation with the Regional Directorate of State Forests in Białystok, in particular the Forest Districts: Hajnówka, Białowieża and Browsk and the Białowieża National Park. The coordinator of the project is Ewa Zapora, PhD. The organisational team consists of: Marek Wolkowycki, dr Eugene Yurchanka, Marcin Stocki, PhD, Urszula Waszczuk, MSc, Sylwia Lewsza, MSc, Konrad Wilamowski, MSc.

2nd International Mushroom Summer School 2022. Programme (PDF, digitally accessible, 2 MB)

by mr