Ohio Mushroom DNA Lab

03/11/2026

I have some news to update the public on OMDL and the large scale mass sequencing project.

OMDL is ending our large scale project indefinitely. This means the lab will no longer be accepting specimens for this project or any other project going forward. I have roughly 1K of specimens plated out and 4.7K of specimens sorted and organized. These specimens are going to be transferred to Mycota Lab for future processing. Unfortunately I will not be sending any specimens back, it's just not feasible and nothing I would agree to at this scale. As the only thing promised, the specimens will go through a first pass or attempt. If this does apply to you, I’m sorry that your specimens sat longer than others. Without never doing the process from front to back it would be merely impossible to understand the time needed to do a project like this and make it sustainable. I have no problem admitting that this project wasn’t the best idea for longer term sustainability. Again, if you or someone you know didn’t get results back as of now, I apologize.

I want to thank and extend gratitude to all those who participated, contributed, and donated! It was a great experience and educational pathway for a lot of us. I also want to thank Stephen Russell for his utmost support to me and the lab over the years. Nothing would have been accomplished without his backing and support. Lastly I want to thank the entire OMDL team also for their utmost support. Not only that, but the dedicated group effort it took to make these accomplishments. Lots of hours of work, drives, shipping, etc. All for the love of the game and project. No salary, no check, no benefits, just pure passion.

We attempted close to 20K specimens. We have 12K+ passable sequences and 10K of those have been uploaded to GenBank and still counting. There have been 30+ new species described and published. Papers, a new journal, books, bioinformatics updates, and friendship have all transpired from this project. It was a great ride, but it is time to close this chapter of OMDL.

I will say this, there is not going to be a timeline provided for when Mycota Lab can get the remaining specimens sequenced and I just kindly ask that we do not bombard them and continue to have patience for something that takes a lot of time and effort. Thank you! If you have anything you want to talk to me about I will still be here.

Mushlove,

Kyle Canan
Ohio Mushroom DNA Lab

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01/18/2026

Recently reran the bioinformatics for all old OMDL sequencing runs. In the past many of the sequences were thrown out during this process. After rerunning bioinformatics we were able to recover a lot of sequences that previously failed. Expect a huge influx of sequence data on iNat in the coming weeks. Ive already gone through hundreds of records and so far we are recovering about 33% of the previously failed sequences. At that rate I expect approximately 1500-2000 new sequences to come through which is the equivalent of about 2 Nanopore runs.

Please be patient, this process takes awhile to get through.

-Scott Ostuni

06/05/2025

I still have some old stock of shirts and hats.

Men’s: XL- 2
XXL- 1

Women’s: S- 2
M- 3
L- 1
XL- 1

Flat bill hats: 3
Ball cap hats: 6

$30 each

If I can sell some of these I might make a new design. It’s been a while and these did well a year or so ago so maybe a new design will also do well. Proceeds will go to OMDL for supplies.

06/05/2025

After deep consideration OMDL will not be accepting specimens this year. Again we are working on catching up and creating a game plan for 2026. Our goals are to get through the thousands of specimens that we still have and get them barcoded. Additionally we are working on describing species and writing papers. Having an open call to the world was great and fun but it did overwhelm the team. We have multiple runs done but are waiting on validation. We are all volunteers and some of us have other jobs and or are parents that require our attention. Sequencing will still take place this year as well as validation. So some of you will still see results throughout this summer and fall until we get it all done. I suspect that we will get everything sequenced within the year but I don't suspect that everything will get validated within the year. It will carry over into 2026. Also specimens that failed sequencing are slowly but surely being sorted and are being placed in que to be sequenced again, so that will be additional sequences and validations throughout the year. So as it seems things will stop, well not really we just aren't taking in anything new but have a lot to work with. Please spread the word and please please please don't give my address to anyone. Instead let them know that we are playing catch up and aren't taking specimens for this year.

A while back I posted this here spreadsheet that will allow you to search for your records and kind of see a status. I will say that it is about 90% accurate. The only tab that isn't accurate is the tissue sample tab. I do have about 3 runs into plates but have not yet transferred the numbers over from Brian to my data set. Every other tab is accurate. The received tab is still being worked on, we have about 80% of the packages opened and recorded. I will send out a final post once that is completed. You will see we have thousands of samples to be worked on and that does not account for the reruns. Those will be tracked through Stephens lab so we wont see the numbers until they are placed into tubes by Brian.

OMDL specimen tracker:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1get8SmBmkqTJ3NMqpKhxa7mygu0eQr03Lwdw48Y7iSg/edit?gid=0 =0

Thanks for your patients and support to OMDL.

05/29/2025

Elsa Petit please contact OMDL, I have a package 📦 I would be willing to send back to you. Unfortunately the specimens are packed in such a way that I will not be sequencing them. You can repackage them and send them back if you like. I’ll save them for a few weeks to allow you to see this post. If I don’t hear from you I will be tossing them out unfortunately. If anyone knows Elsa please have them contact Kyle or any other OMDL staff in regards to a package from MA.

05/22/2025

Folks, lets have a little conversation about collections to be sequenced. OMDL opened their call in 2023 and closed it in fall of 2024. We are now almost 6 months into 2025 and are still working on specimens that came in to the lab in 2024 and a little in 2023. I have an estimated 2500-5000 specimens unopened in the lab that I plan to start getting to in the next month. That doesn't mean that I will have them done in the next month, just means I will start getting them in que. With that being said, the wait time has been and is much longer than expected. I don't feel completely right about it. So my thoughts and decisions are to keep the open call closed for the remainder of 2025. Now, if and I mean if, folks totally understood and didn't mind at all that the specimens would sit until I could get to them without an estimated time frame I would be open to keeping the call open with some limitations. Bottom line is this, we are completely overwhelmed with specimens, time constraints, reagents, validation, etc. If we chose to keep it closed that doesn't mean sequencing would stop, as we have plenty to work on from the past. I will leave this here for a few days to get some feedback, comments, concerns, etc.

Thanks

Kyle

05/17/2025

Hi everyone,

I want to sincerely thank each of you who filled out the application form for the amateur mycology publishing group. I was honestly overwhelmed—in the best way—by the amount of interest and enthusiasm this community showed. It’s incredibly encouraging to see so many people excited about learning the process of describing and publishing new fungal species.

For this first round, I’ve had to keep the group small to ensure a manageable and supportive environment. If you weren’t selected for this initial cohort, please don’t take it as a lack of potential or interest in your participation. There will likely be future cohorts, and your application is still very much on my radar.

Thanks again for your support and passion for amateur mycology.

Scott Ostuni

05/11/2025

Thank you guys for showing so much interest in my previous post. Below I am attaching a form for those that are interested in participating. Please fill this out completely if you are interested in participating. I will likely select between 7-10 people to be in the first cohort.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScq3cftsalmE-wQwZO0hU_iwYbXUZxnJeEDXIR4d6TrEUoeGg/viewform?usp=dialog

Thnank You,
Scott Ostuni

05/10/2025

Calling all amateur mycologists! 🍄

I’m considering starting a regular group for those interested in learning the process of publishing mycology papers and describing new species. This would be a collaborative space where we can share knowledge, discuss the steps involved in scientific publishing, and support each other on the journey.

I recently discussed this with Kyle and he is on board to potentially make this the first OMDL committee that is open to the public. If this is something that would interest you, please comment below.

Thanks
Scott Ostuni

04/19/2025

One of the changes in 2025 for my lab is an organization sheet to track specimens via iNat or MO number. With our new 2025 protocol it will be a requirement to print a label with each individual specimen that will have a QR code to be easily scanned into our system. Once we release that there will be details on how to do that (it is easy). This Google Sheet document will be used from now on to track individual numbers. So now all of you can use this link instead of messaging me or other OMDL staff members about the status of your samples.

There are 5 total tabs on this sheet. I will quickly explain the meaning of each.

Received: this means I have opened and inspected your samples. It means that the samples are in a sorting box and will be queued up for sequencing when that time comes. This does not mean that you will see results soon, in fact it will be months from here.

Tissue sample: this means that the samples have left the box and have been sampled into tubes/plates. This does not mean that your sample will be sequenced within a few weeks. I have plates built weeks and months in advance. Within this weekend I will be adding a bunch of numbers to this tab as I have several runs built in plates ready to go when I get there.

Extraction/PCR: this means that the samples are being worked on for an upcoming Nanopore run. This typically means that the samples will be sequenced within weeks. Usually no more than 4 weeks.

Sequencing/Bioinformatics: This means that the samples are in the Nanopore currently or recently just finished the sequencing process. The data is saved to my PC and awaiting bioinformatics and processing. This does not mean that you will see results on your iNat or MO account yet. However, it is getting closer.

Validation: this means that the samples have been placed into a spreadsheet to be validated by amazing volunteers. This does not mean that you will see results within days. This could also take time and that could mean weeks and months as well.

When you get a notification on iNat or MO, that is when you can get excited that your results have landed.

The received tab only reflects about 15% of what is sitting on my lab floor. Remember these are packages that showed up AFTER we closed our open call and asked that no more samples be sent in. I have a plan to pay my kids to open packages and record numbers this weekend. I still don't expect every package to be opened but we will get that 15% number up. So if you check tonight and still don't see your sample then maybe check again Saturday and Sunday.

Also, this is a new process and will only be for all the packages that showed up after the open call was closed and Nanopore runs 20 and on. So OMDL20-OMDL23 are on here. Going forward this is the standard for our lab. Once I get through this backlog all packages and runs going forward will be recorded on this spreadsheet. Please know that this is a new process and only reflects numbers that we have in house since the idea of this spreadsheet.

To search just simply open this sheet and hit Ctrl+F to find. Enter your number that you are inquiring about and hit enter. You will have to switch tabs at the bottom as the system does not automatically search within all the tabs on the sheet.

Thanks for your love and support and remember this is a hobby. A very expensive and time consuming hobby. Some of us have families and other parts of our lives that has nothing to do with this. Everyone including myself are volunteers with no payment for this work. We are a group of nerds that just happen to be really passionate about DNA sequencing fungi.

-OMDL-

04/16/2025

Getting close to 3,000 sequenced specimens for Ohio.
Get ready to collect mushrooms for FREE sequencing. The team is still working on the new protocol for people to be able to mail in specimens. There will be some major changes and updates so it’s taking us a little time, all while we are playing catch up with the specimens from last year. We hope to have it released by at least May. Thanks for all your support and let’s get that number to 5,000 before 2026!