Tips for studying for a #Mycology exam

I was invited to assist in laboratory activities in the Mycology unit of the Public Health Microbiologist Training Program (PHM). I'm excited to pay it forward because I know how challenging the program is. The trainers were hoping that I could help the current cohort while they figure out the best way to study concepts in Mycology.

I am no subject-matter expert (i.e., my graduate degree was on something else). However, I retained many concepts for about two decades because the foundational courses at UPLB helped me understand how to study instead of just memorising key points. Also, my instructor in PPTH 104 (Introduction to Mycology) is one of the best mycologists in the Philippines, Dr Teresita Dalisay.

After some thought, I list some tips for studying for a Mycology exam:

Tip #1: Draw as many observations as you can

Don't limit yourself to circles. Try to draw your observations as accurately as possible. I do this by shading my drawings to add texture and dimension. I'm not the best artist, but the added detail helps me remember what I saw. I like Staedtler pencils but learned to use whatever was available in class. This tip is also applicable once you're working in a Mycology lab, by the way.

For some reason, taking photos with a phone is not as effective as actual drawings.

Tip #2: Consult as many Mycology books and/or references as you can 

Some of my favourites are:

• Larone's Medically Important Fungi
• University of Adelaide Mycology (the website is useful, but I prefer the book version)
• Medical Mycology: A Self-Instructional Text

I also like to ask questions when I'm confused, as instructors are normally the easiest resources to access. The problem I typically had while sitting through classes was that I didn't know what to ask when the instructors asked if we had any questions. I usually ask questions the next day after I have reviewed my notes and figured out what I didn't understand. 

Tip #3: Learn mycology jargon

Mycology has its own terminology, which may sound unintelligible to someone new to the topic. Aside from reading the reference material and talking with instructors, I found that the best way to remember the terms is to label the drawings made during your observations of the organisms. By writing down the parts of the organisms, you start remembering how the terms are spelled and linking them with organisms. This, for instance, is part of a page of my notes about different mucormycetes:

Drawing the different parts of fungi while sitting in my PPTH 104 class was so helpful. I haven't been in a Microbiology lab in decades. Still, once I saw a Rhizopus nigricans tease mount, I was able to describe it as having non-septate hyaline to brown hyphae, a sporangium encasing pigmented conidia, and a sporangiophore directly above rhizoids. If that sounds full of jargon, it is. There's no way around it. You just have to master the technical terms. This is where reading mycology books really helps.

Tip #4: Understand the life cycle of fungi

Taxonomists have used the sexual reproductive structures of fungi and DNA sequences to classify them into groups. Back in college, I learned that there were four major groups of fungi: Phylum Ascomycota (ascospores in sac-like structures called asci), Phylum Basidiomycota (basidia containing basidiospores), Phylum Zygomycota (spores inside sporangia), and Phylum Deuteromycota ("imperfect fungi" because they do not have known sexual reproductive structures). However, using DNA sequence similarities in taxonomy has upended the previous classification system and increased the number of groups. During the PHM training, I had to do quite a bit of rethinking the way I understood Phylum Zygomycota because the fungi that used to belong to this phylum are now grouped into two "new" phyla: Mucoromycota (the zygomycetes I'm familiar with) and Zoopagomycota (includes fungi whose spores are expelled from the sporangia).

Another complication in studying fungi (related to the life cycle) is using two names for one organism. One name corresponds to the sexual stage (e.g., teleomorph), and the other to the asexual stage (e.g., anamorph). For example, Candida krusei (anamorph) and Pichia kudriavzevii (teleomorph) refer to just one organism. In the medical field, the anamorphic name is typically used; however, databases for new modes of identification (e.g., MALDI-TOF-MS) use the teleomorphic name is used. Mycologists must bridge this gap to help medical professionals diagnose the etiology of infectious fungal diseases.

I hope these tips help microbiologists prepare for their Mycology exam(s).