Science meets art on Tracy Debenport’s Instagram page, under.the.scope. It’s full of fluffy fungi on colorful agar plates and fungi transformed through the microscope.
Debenport didn’t set out to be a collector of fungi. In a previous life she was a video editor for a reality TV show. But in 2011, after a near fatal encounter with spinal meningitis left her with chronic neuropathy (a condition affecting the normal activity of nerves), she needed to choose a new path – one that doesn’t involve long hours at a computer. She returned to school and left with a degree in biotechnology.
She then found herself working in a plant pathology lab at Cornell, studying a plant pathogenic fungus Aspergillus flavus. “It’s a big problem in agriculture with ground crops, like peanuts. Peanut butter is my favorite food, so it’s kind of like a personal affront,” Debenport jokes.
This was Debenport’s first encounter with mold outside of the green fuzzy growth on old bread and other foods. “When I started working with it, it was the first time I’d seen mold under a microscope and I fell in love,” says Debenport. “I was blown away by all the delicate features of this organism.”
It was also at Cornell where she started exploring other species of the fungal world. With access to an already-documented strain collection, she was able to build a foundation in fungal morphology and identification.
“I was doing a lot of isolations from soil. There was so much there so I started learning more about different types of mold,” Debenport says. “Then I decided to start an Instagram account to document what I was learning.”
Now, Debenport is a scientist at Indigo Agriculture, where she can directly apply her passion for fungi. In this role, she isolates fungi that are potentially beneficial for agriculture. Turning to the plant’s natural microbial community, she seeks to find fungi already there than can help plants overcome stressors like drought, flooding, or nutrient deficiencies. These candidate fungi may become commercial products in the future.
Still, she makes time for turning these often overshadowed microbes into pieces of art. At home, she has a mini fungi lab with a culture collection (nonpathogens of course!), solutions to prepare slides, microscopes, and other basic lab necessities. She started collecting fungi in late 2016. “I have about 20 different species in my freezer,” she says.
How does she decide what to photograph or what makes it into the collection? “What I like to do is just explore and try to find different molds that I haven’t photographed yet that have really interesting structures,” Debenport says. “The wackier, the better. I want the ones that look like flowers, the ones that look like trees, the ones that look like space aliens.”
While Aspergillus flavus remains her favorite fungus, Penicillium vulpinum is also high on the list. (If you’re thinking that the word “Penicillium” looks a lot like “penicillin,” that’s because some Penicillium species produce penicillin.) “It’s one of the fungi that I’ve had the most visceral reaction to, but not in a bad way. I saw it and thought, everyone needs to see this,” she says.
And indeed, you can see Penicillium vulpinum under.the.scope or on her RedBubble shop.
