Irina DruzhininaDr. Irina Druzhinina studied biology at the Lomonosov’s State University in Moscow, Russia, and at the University of Vienna, where she graduated (PhD) in 2001. Thereafter she became a University Assistant in the research area of C.P. Kubicek at Viena University of Technology, and habilitated in 2011 in “Microbiology”. She is now leader of the working group “Microbiology” at the same institute.

The scientific work of Irina Druzhinina started with a focus on mycology and molecular evolution, working on species diversity and population differentiation in Trichoderma, where she established an online tool for species identification based on DNA barcodes that is today one of the main resources for this purpose for researchers worldwide. In addition, she worked on such diverse topics as phenotype profiling of industrial fungi, peptaibol biosynthesis in Trichoderma, biodiesel production by marine algae, Trichoderma endophytes, biofungicide development and molecular ecology of Trichoderma. In the last years, her interest expanded to ecological genomics, i.e. the use of genome wide information to study the evolutionary adaptation of Trichoderma in its habitats. She acts as a member of the editorial board for Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and is the chair of the International Subcommission on Taxonomy of Trichoderma and Hypocrea, a member of ICTF/IUMS. She published > 60 papers in peer reviewed international journals and edited a book Read More Read Less