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Manfred Girbardt and Charles Bracker: outstanding pioneers in fungal microscopy

Abstract

Midway through the twentieth century, the availability of new and improved optical and electronic microscopes facilitated rapid advances in the elucidation of the fine structure of fungal cells. In this Essay, I pay tribute to Manfred Girbardt (1919–1991) and Charles Bracker (1938–2012) — two individuals who, despite being separated by geography and the restrictions of the Cold War, both made equally fundamental discoveries in fungal cell ultrastructure and set high standards for specimen manipulation and image processing.

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Figure 1: Manfred Girbardt and Charles E. Bracker.
Figure 2: Classical transmission electron micrographs of the hyphal tips of fungi.
Figure 3: Girbardt's classic three-dimensional reconstruction of the tip of a hypha.
Figure 4: Bracker's uninterrupted view of the organelle gradient in a hypha.

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks R. Lopez-Franco, M. Riquelme and R. Mouriño-Perez for helpful comments on the contents of this Essay.

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Correspondence to Salomon Bartnicki-Garcia.

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Bartnicki-Garcia, S. Manfred Girbardt and Charles Bracker: outstanding pioneers in fungal microscopy. Nat Rev Microbiol 13, 52–57 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro3379

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