Marine fungi in the spotlight: opportunities and challenges for marine fungal natural product discovery and biotechnology

The marine fungal natural products (MaFNaP) Consortium, a scientific network founded in 2014, aims to fuel systematic research on marine fungi and their secondary metabolites. The 2nd international conference of marine fungal natural products (MaFNaP_2017) that was held in Kiel (Germany) and hosted by GEOMAR Centre for Marine Biotechnology (GEOMAR-Biotech) in June 2017 brought together scientists working all relevant aspects of marine fungi. This conference report highlights the topics discussed in the conference and suggestions for future work on marine fungal compounds. One of the major aims is to attract scientists working on terrestrial fungi in tackling the common bottlenecks and to move marine fungal biodiscovery and biotechnology research forward.