This volume provides an overview of both the state of the art in the traditional fields of industrial mycology as well as of the evaluation of novel applications of fungi in agriculture, environmental biology, and medicine. The first section is devoted to the traditional use of fungi in the production and processing of food and beverages. The second section deals with different fungal metabolites and enzymes. Here, both fungal substances, e.g. antibiotics, that are part of industrial production processes and those which have not yet been developed into commercial products, but bear important potentials, are introduced. The third section treats the ability of fungi to degrade organic substances or to absorb substrates, which can be used for the purification of contaminated sites and for recycling processes. The last part presents future developments and strategies to produce heterologous proteins.