Happy New Year !

Hey folks.  Great to be back in the lab running PCR on my fungal samples and sending them off for sequencing.  I have picked a few interesting specimens from the collection to sequence at first, then will move on to the more common species and genera.  A few of the selected specimens may yet to be described in Pennsylvania and the thought of documenting novel species is exciting.  There is a species within the order Xylariales that is most common in Europe and has rarely been documented in the United States.  Teasing out the data for the past 2 years of collection from my research site will surely be interesting and I am optimistic that the DNA sequences will greatly aid in their identification.  For now I am concentrating on perfecting my techniques in the lab and ability to edit ITS sequence data for submission to GenBank.  Due to the heavy workload this fall, I will most likely be posting results on a weekly basis.  Still, please stop back and provide comments and suggestions.  Have a great year and hope you enjoy the new blog template...it will most likely change as the months progress.