Collecting orange peel from a roadside rubbish bin in the Barossa Valley
may not fit in with your ideas of scientific research, but it helped me to
make a major medical discovery.
Testing the orange peel back in the laboratory showed it contained a fungus my colleagues and I had been trying to find for months - a fungus known to cause a relatively rare but unpleasant flu-like illness in humans. After another visit to the site and some more laboratory tests, we finally discovered the natural habitat of the fungus - the river red gum. The tree's canopy was directly over the place where I had originally collected the orange peel sample, and the fungal spores had simply dropped onto the peel.
Discovering the link between the fungus and the river red gum solved a puzzle that had eluded mycologists (scientists who study fungi) for many years. As a result, I received many invitations to visit other mycologists around the world. My discovery may have been made by chance, but as Louis Pasteur said, Where observation is concerned, chance favours only the prepared mind.
At the time the discovery was made, I was employed on a 12-month grant in the Mycology Unit of the Royal Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide after finishing my Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Adelaide.
I am now a technical officer in the Mycology Unit, where my current work includes collecting specimens, culturing and identifying fungi, and testing fungi for their sensitivity to antifungal drugs.
Copyright 1997 Nancy Mills, PO Box 18166, Collins St East, Melbourne, VIC 8003
Page last updated 31 May 2000