Kenneth B. Raper papers

Kenneth Bryan Raper (1908-1987) was a mycologist, microbiologist, and botanist whose contributions to the medical and industrial applications of fungi of the genera Aspergillus and Penicillium stand among the outstanding achievements of 20th century science. Of equal importance is his identification of a cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum in 1935 that led to four decades of research and publication on a group of organisms (Dictyostelids and Acrasids) that have wide applications in microbiology.

Kenneth Raper was born in Welcome, North Carolina 11 July 1908. He gained his A.B. at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill 1929), A.M. at George Washington University (1931), and A.M. (1935) and Ph.D. (1936) at Harvard University. Later in his career he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of North Carolina. As a mycologist, he began his professional career in with the USDA Bureau of Chemistry and Soils (1929-36) and Bureau of Plant Industry (1936-40). Here he met Dr. Charles Thom who became his mentor and key collaborator in his work. Thom and Raper co-authored the classic monographs, A Manual of the Aspergilli (1945) and A Manual of the Penicillia (1949).

From 1940 to 1953 Dr. Raper served as microbiologist at the USDA Northern Regional Research Laboratory in Peoria, IL. In 1940, upon a visit from British scientists Raymond Florey and Ronald Heatley seeking to develop methods of large-scale penicillin production for the war effort, Raper and his associates initiated a research program at NRRL of historic importance. Beginning with a Penicillium strain from Alexander Fleming, the NRRL "Penicillin Team" went on to develop increasing yields of penicillin in submerged culture that were of critical therapeutic impact for WWII combat injuries and which launched the "Age of Antibiotics."

After an appointment as visiting professor at the University of Illinois (1946-53) Dr. Raper left the USDA in 1953 to become Professor of Bacteriology and Botany at the University of Wisconsin. He was William Trelease Professor from 1966 to 1979. During this stage of his career he pursued research into the life histories, cytology, and taxonomy of the Dictyosteliaceae which culminated in the publication, The Dictyostelids in 1984. He also published The Genus Aspergillus with Dorothy I. Fennell in 1965.

Dr. Raper served as chairman of the Executive Committee of the International Botanical Congress XI (1969), chairman and delegate to four General Assemblies of the International Union of Biological Sciences, trustee of the American Type Culture Collection (1948-62), and member of an Executive Committee of the National Research Council (1956-61). He was a member of the National Academy of Science (1949), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1949), and the American Philosophical Society (1958). Among his many honors and distinctions, he received the USDA Distinguished Service Award (1947), the Distinguished Mycologist Award of the Mycological Society of America (1981), and was the first recipient of the Charles Thom Award from the Society of Industrial Microbiology (1967). Dr. Raper died in 1987 at the age of 79.