Rhoda Williams Benham

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Rhoda Williams Benham
BornDecember 5, 1894
Cedarhurst, New York, United States
DiedJanuary 17, 1957(1957-01-17) (aged 62)
NationalityUnited States
Alma materBarnard College
Scientific career
Fieldsmycology; botany

Rhoda Williams Benham (1894-1957) was an American mycologist, a pioneer of the field of medical mycology.[1]

Education and career[]

Rhoda Williams Benham graduated in 1917 with B.S. in Botany from Barnard College and in 1919 with M.S. in Biology from Columbia University. She graduated in 1931 with Ph.D. in botany from Columbia University with the thesis "Certain Monilias Parasitic on Man, their Identification by Morphology and by Aggluti.[1]

Benham published widely on fungal taxonomy, pathogenicity, and nutrition. At Columbia University, she directed the first medical mycology research lab in the country, and taught the nation's first medical mycology course in 1935.[1] Her comprehensive 1935 study of pathogenic yeast isolated from humans established that clinical isolates identified by Busse, Curtis, and others as Cryptococcus, Saccharomcyes, and Torula were the same species, which she termed Cryptococcus.[2] Her subsequent 1950 publication established Cryptococcus neoformans as the formally accepted taxon.[3] She helped teach Elizabeth Lee Hazen mycology.[4]

Awards and honors[]

The Medical Mycological Society of the Americas awards an annual prize for outstanding contributions to the field of medical mycology. [5] The fungusTrichophyton benhamiae was named in her honor.

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c Silva, Margarita; Hazen, Elizabeth L. (1957). "Rhoda Williams Benham: 1894-1957". Mycologia. 49 (4): 596–603. doi:10.1080/00275514.1957.12024672. JSTOR 3756162.
  2. ^ Benham, Rhoda W (1935). "Cryptococci: their identification by morphology and serology". Journal of Infectious Disease. 57 (3): 255–274. doi:10.1093/infdis/57.3.255.
  3. ^ Benham, Rhoda (1950). "Cryptococcosis and Blastomycosis". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 50 (10): 1299–1314. Bibcode:1950NYASA..50.1299B. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1950.tb39828.x. PMID 14783320. S2CID 11318773.
  4. ^ "Hazen, Elizabeth Lee and Rachel Fuller Brown". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2020-10-04.
  5. ^ "Rhoda Benham Awardees". Medical Mycological Society of the Americas. 1 June 2020.
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