Utah State University professor and researcher Erika Espinosa-Ortiz and her team received a $900,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to explore if fungal networks use electrical activity to sense and respond in organized, meaningful ways.

Espinosa-Ortiz and her team will develop a non-invasive tool, using genetically encoded fluorescent proteins. These proteins will change in brightness as a response to variations in electrical potential of the fungi cell membrane, allowing the team to see the electrical activity within the fungi.

The team will then record the electrical activity responses that occur when the fungal network is exposed to environmental and biological disturbances. This will generate large imaging datasets that show electrical activity over time. Machine learning tools will identify patterns and determine if specific disturbances are associated with distinct electrical responses.

The project is made up of multi-disciplinary experts.

Yanqing Su, from the University of Oklahoma, has expertise in machine learning to develop tools for analyzing large-scale imaging datasets of fungal electrical activity when introduced to disturbances.

Jixun Zhan, a collaborator from the biological and chemical engineering department at USU, will support the development of the fungal strains used in the study.

Utah State assistant professor of biological engineering Lukas Buecherl will contribute to genetic engineering approaches for implementing fluorescent proteins that make non-invasive imaging possible.

Venkatraman Siddharthan is a neuroscientist, microscopic imaging expert and senior researcher in the Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Sciences Department at USU. He will lead the advanced live-cell imaging and continuous, non-invasive monitoring of electrical activity in fungal networks.

About the W. M. Keck Foundation

The W. M. Keck Foundation was established in 1954 in Los Angeles by William Myron Keck, founder of The Superior Oil Company. One of the nation's largest philanthropic organizations, the W. M. Keck Foundation supports outstanding science, engineering and medical research. The Foundation also supports undergraduate education and maintains a program within Southern California to support arts and culture, education, health and community service projects.