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Business Daily: The power of fungi

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The power of fungi

05/08/2022 GMT

BBC World Service - Business Daily, The power of fungi

We explore the commercial uses of fungi, from construction to medicine and fashion.

The fungal kingdom is getting a lot of attention due to its wide-ranging potential uses, from medical compounds to robust, ecologically-sound materials. Tim Hayward investigates.

Tim Hayward takes a journey into the world of fungi. There’s a global wave of interest in the potential uses of fungi right now - and businesses are catching on and playing their part.

Tim starts at the Fungarium in Kew Gardens, the world’s biggest collection of dried fungal specimens, guided by collections curator Lee Davies. He then heads to a forest in Finland, where chief executive Eric Puro and lab manager Joette Crosier walk him through the setup at Kääpä Biotech - one of a new breed of fungally-focussed companies with big ambitions rooted in a passion for mushrooms and mycelium. Then he talks with Albert Garcia-Romeu, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Albert is part of a research team looking at the fungally-derived compound psilocybin - about which there’s a huge amount of interest relating to its therapeutic potential.

Presenter: Tim Hayward
Producer : Richard Ward.
Image: Shiitake (Lentinula edodes) mushrooms being cultivated at Kääpä Mushrooms, Karjalohja, Finland. Used with permission.

Tim’s three-part series about fungi, ‘Fungi: The New Frontier’, is available now on BBC Sounds.

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