Ignacio Chapela

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Ignacio Chapela is an microbial ecologist and mycologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and an outspoken critic of the University's ties to the biotechnology industry. He is also notable for authorship of a controversial Nature paper about the flow of transgenes in to wild Mexican maize. In 2005, studies published in PNAS by Mexican scientists do not support Chapela's findings. Chapela is also notable for his work with natural resources and indigenous rights.

[edit] Disputes with University Faculty

Chapela objected to his faculty's taking of money from Novartis, taking a strong position on the issue. Chapela was denied tenure in 2003, allegedly because of intervention by pro-industry faculty members. However, Chapela was finally awarded tenure on May 17, 2005.

[edit] Chapela and indigenous rights

Chapela founded The Mycological Facility, a facility dealing with questions of natural resources and indigenous rights, and collaborates with indigenous communities in Mexico, Costa Rica and Ecuador on issues rights to genetic resources.

[edit] Chapela and mycology

Chapela has worked on the symbiosis between leafcutter ants and their cultivated fungi (attine symbiosis). His research seems to indicate that some leaf-cutter ants have "domesticated" a single lineage of fungi for over 30 million years; Chapela is currently studying this symbiosis from evolutionary and agricultural perspectives, as well as looking for ways to manipulating it.

He is also an Advisory Board member for The Sunshine Project, an organization promoting citizens' concens with biosafety and biowarfare.