People

geneticist, biochemical genetics researcher

Working with Edward Tatum, this geneticist used Neurospora to investigate gene action. Their experiments showed how a fungus could illuminate the chemistry of living cells.

botanist, mycologist, cryptogam researcher

This Malmedy researcher devoted years to Ardennes cryptogams. Her specimens, descriptions and letters reveal how sustained field observation became knowledge that other scientists could examine.

mycologist, phylogeneticist

The American mycologist who led the agreement on a shared classification of the fungal kingdom and studies the evolution of nutritional modes.

mycologist, lichenologist, nomenclature specialist

A British mycologist and lichenologist, author of the 1.5-million-species estimate and co-author of its later revision upwards.

biochemist, microbiologist

The Japanese biochemist who screened thousands of fungi for an inhibitor of cholesterol synthesis — and found one in a mould.

mycologist, illustrator

An American mycologist with no post and no laboratory, who described and painted the fungi of Maryland and published in Botanical Gazette.

chemist, biochemist

The chemist who isolated and purified the active substance of nystatin — without that work the discovery would have stayed in a test tube.

microbiologist, public health researcher

A microbiologist who, in a public health laboratory, found the actinomycete that yielded the first effective antifungal drug.

mycologist, taxonomist

A Kraków mycologist who gave Polish mycology its basic tool: an ordered checklist of the country's larger fungi.

mycologist, taxonomist, university teacher

A Warsaw mycologist who spent more than half a century building the Polish school of fungal research and teaching its next generations.

mycologist, botanist, professor

Buller's experiments explained how basidiomycetes discharge their spores and how the shape of a fruiting body exploits moving air.

plant pathologist, mycologist, professor, director of collections

The first female professor in the Netherlands built a collection of living fungal cultures and a school of plant pathology open to women.

mycologist, botanist, plant pathologist, professor

The researcher who experimentally linked microorganisms to plant disease and helped to build modern mycology as a science.

mycologist, plant pathologist, illustrator, curator

The first woman to head mycology at Kew combined taxonomy, plant pathology, illustration and field guides for the public.

mycologist, collector, publisher

An independent American mycologist created a worldwide network for exchanging specimens and a great collection of gasteroid fungi and brackets.

naturalist, experimenter, instrument maker, architect

The Royal Society's curator of experiments showed the public the microscopic world, including the first printed illustration of a microfungus.

mycologist, botanist, clergyman, plant pathologist

A clergyman and naturalist who built an enormous reference collection that became the foundation of the Fungarium at Kew.

mycologist, botanist, taxonomist

The author of Synopsis methodica fungorum laid one of the foundations for describing and naming fungi systematically.

mycologist, botanist, professor

The Swedish mycologist created Systema Mycologicum and the morphological language that the taxonomy of fungi still uses today.

physician, bacteriologist, researcher

The bacteriologist described the action of a substance produced by a Penicillium mould, beginning the road to penicillin as a medicine.

naturalist, mycologist, scientific illustrator, writer

Before she created Peter Rabbit, she studied spore germination and produced more than 350 precise illustrations of fungi.

botanist, mycologist, curator of collections

A Florentine botanist who observed spores and showed experimentally that fungi do not arise spontaneously from decaying matter.