MycoRant

Paul Stamets with a large agarikon (Wiki Commons/Dusty Yao-Stamets)

Andy Isaacson of Mother Jones has written an in-depth article discussing a wide range of work, including a significant amount of biographical background, involving Paul Stamets of Fungi Perfecti.

The Search for an Endangered Mushroom That Could Cure Smallpox, TB and Bird Flu begins aboard a boat. (Note: It’s a five page article but this link above leads to one long page containing the entire article).

In the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest grows a bulbous, prehistoric-looking mushroom called agarikon. It prefers to colonize century-old Douglas fir trees, growing out of their trunks like an ugly mole on a finger. When I first met Paul Stamets, a mycologist who has spent more than three decades hunting, studying, and tripping on mushrooms, he had found only two of these unusual fungi, each time by accident — or, as he might put it, divine intervention.

Stamets believes that unlocking agar­i­kon’s secrets may be as important to the future of human health as Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillium mold’s antibiotic properties more than 80 years ago. And so on a sunny July day, Stamets is setting off on a voyage along the coastal islands of southern British Columbia in hopes of bagging more of the endangered fungus before deforestation or climate change irreparably alters the ecosystems where it makes its home. Agarikon may be ready to save us — but we may have to save it first.

Articles that go into this much detail about an individual and his work don’t come around that often, so check it out.

The author is apparently not a scientist since a few goofs do sneak in. Goofs such as:

Project BioShield, the Department of Health and Human Services’ biodefense program, has found that agarikon is highly resistant to many flu viruses including, when combined with other mushrooms, bird flu. And a week before the trip, the National Center for Natural Products Research, a federally funded lab at the University of Mississippi, concluded that it showed resistance to orthopox viruses including smallpox — without any apparent toxicity.

Uh, yeah of course it’s “resistant” to bird flu and smallpox–it’s a mushroom! Mushrooms are not susceptible to these diseases. We know what he was trying to say though, so we’ll let it slide since overall it is a really good read.

Tags: agarikon, medicinal mushrooms, Stamets