FABI was honoured to host a visit by Prof. John Taylor, one of the world’s most eminent mycologists and viewed as the father of the phylogenetic species concept in mycology. This was Prof. Taylor's second visit - the first when he travelled to South Africa in 2000 as a guest speaker for the BioY2K Conference.  At that time, FABI was only two years old and various of the buildings that FABI now occupies had yet to be built.  While visiting FABI, Prof. Taylor met with various academics, held a round table discussion with students and presented a special seminar on 9 September entitled “Characterising fungal species and their ecology with cultivated sorghum”. His visit also included a tour of the FABI Biocontrol Centre and the Future Africa campus on the UP Experimental farm.

Professor Taylor was part of the team who pioneered the use of PCR for fungal phylogenetics and ecology. The universal primers designed by this group continue to be used widely throughout biology and throughout the world. This 1990 paper has been cited more than 27,000 times! He is also credited with playing a key role  in driving the revolutionary “one name, one fungus” initiative to describe fungi using only DNA data.