Decoding Fungal Recipes: Adriana on Patience, and Scientific Curiosity

For Adriana, the love for fungi began over a decade ago — and it hasn’t faded since. Now, as a PhD researcher in the MAGic-MOLFUN network, she’s working to decode how fungi produce their diverse molecules by linking metabolites to biosynthetic gene clusters. In this interview, Adriana shares how she navigates the challenges of studying underexplored organisms, how community shaped her PhD mindset, and why a bit of chaos (à la Doc Brown) is part of her scientific DNA.

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Adriana’s project, titled “Fungal metabolomics to link metabolites to their genes,” focuses on identifying how fungal genomes encode the production of secondary metabolites — both beneficial and harmful. By combining metabolomic profiling with genome mining techniques, her goal is to match specific fungal compounds to their biosynthetic gene clusters. This knowledge can help assess fungal strains as potential sources of useful products (like pigments) or toxic compounds (like mycotoxins), with applications across pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and food safety