User talk:Pkgill/sandbox

Tolypocladium inflatum sandbox feedback
Hi Pkgill,

The fungus you get to write about is very useful! I can't believe that the immune suppressant it produces is Novartis' top-selling drug; this was really interesting to me.

I have a few thoughts and comments to share, and I hope you find them useful.

I don't know much about your fungus, and it may be that there isn't much more information about it out there, but I found you wrote too much about cyclosporin/ciclosporin. It already has it's own Wikipedia page, which I'd suggest you link to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciclosporin

The reason someone will stop by your fungus' wiki page is to learn about the fungus, not as much about the drug. Though I think writing a bit about ciclosporing, it's value, uses, structure, function, etc... is valuable here you will want to keep in mind that the page is about tolypocladium inflatum, and not ciclosporin.

I'd like to learn more about how ciclosporin helps the fungus attack insects, or specifically the beetle which you mention. Which type of beetles are affected? Do you know how they get infected? Is the fungus a soil fungus of some type? Does the beetle also have chitin in it's exoskeleton? Do they have any defense mechanisms agains the fungus? What other invertebrates are affected, and does it have a ripple affect in other ways? (I.e. are the insects affected important for agriculture? Are they pests, in which case the fungus might be useful in controlling outbreaks of pests agriculturally?).

Can you also touch (briefly) on how ciclosporin is now produced, esp. if it's culture from the fungus (which I doubt - but it would be really neat if it was!).

If you can find some more details about the value of this drug in terms of: amount purchased annually (total cost and total volumes if possible), where it is most purchased, and how it is distributed/regulated (again, VERY briefly) to flesh out your section on the value of the fungus, that could be interesting.

I am assuming you are going to add sub-headings, here are some rough thoughts: morphology, ecology, parasitism, and biotech/pharma uses (with a subheading for the recent innovations you mentioned).

Finally, I'd suggest some pictures! Ask Prof Scott or Prof Summerbell - they both seem to have big collections of pictures of fungi.

I look forward to reading the finished product.

Clrlpn1 (talk) 01:18, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Thoughts from a close stranger
It looks like User:Clrlpn1 beat me to the punch so, take what I say in light of their comments :) I really enjoyed how you layed-out the history and somewhat controversy about naming; it really provides a great insight about how overtime and other influences, the naming or rather classification of the species changes. The economic influence is a nice touch!

I know this course has an anthropomorphic aspect to it, but it will be curious to understand the effects the fungus has on beetles and whether it does have cascading effects up/down the “food chain”. The CPA-bit is quite fascinating, in terms of formatting, you could potentially make it into its own section. Your last point on the fungi producing substances that can inhibit the growth of other fungal species sounds interesting. Do the authors list characteristics of other fungi? Is this an evolutionary advantage or does it have other ecological implications as well? I really think you did a great job focussing on the pharmaceutically-important metabolites T.inflatum produces and their effects, but it would be great to know a bit more about the ecological characteristics of this fungus. Abokorab (talk) 15:12, 30 October 2015 (UTC)