Gotta hop in here. . .interesting thread, and I very much hope for a full recovery. I've also [stupidly] smelled questionable growth and gotten light headed and woozy for a few hours afterward... But there's little chance this is a C. neoformans infection. I'd say no chance. I have some clinical bacteriology lab experience, and every fungal culture we got would first be grown at room temperature. This is, among other things, a safety precaution. Some organisms LIKE C. neoformans only morph into the infectious stage at higher incubation temperatures, namely 37 C [read that, mammalian body temperature]. It's kinda cool actually; it grows mycelium-like at room temperature, and only transforms into its 'yeast-stage' at 37. To identify it, we would take a look at suspect room temp. fuzzy growth. . .if it looked a certain way, we would then very carefully subculture and secure the plate and put it in the 37C+elevated CO2. If it were a dimorphic fungus like neoformans, it wouldn't grow fuzzy, it would be mucoid/wet, like the above pic. So basically, unless they were incubated much too hot AND you managed to get an environmentally rare yeast into your mix. . .AND are somewhat immunocompromised; The weight of evidence points toward anaphylaxis--which could have been deadly, but likely much sooner after sniffing. Or a secondary source, i.e. you just happen to get sick at the same time. But hey, I don't want to play doctor here, I just know it isn't that easy to accidentally cultivate neoformans.. . shit, I think in 20 years at that lab they grew it three times total. THIS IS A LINK YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTELY CHECK OUT, the CDC is quite good at identifying suspect contaminants [for a fee] but are also quite available to confer with you on the phone about suspect sniffings: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/mdb/labreference.htm The last paragraph on that page sounds like it might be of use to this forum. Here's another link to some pretty good CDC info on the beast: for a really good time, do a search on any of the other dimorphic fungal diseases, preferably with pics :P http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol4no1/buchanan.htm Growth In Vivo To cause infection in humans, a C. neoformans isolate must grow at 37oC in an atmosphere of approximately 5% CO2 and at a pH of 7.3 to 7.4. To survive at 37oC, the organism must have an intact gene that encodes the C. neoformans calcineurin A catalytic subunit (10). Calcineurin is a serine-threonine specific phosphatase that is activated by Ca2+-calmodulin and is involved in stress responses in yeasts (10). Although calcineurin A mutant strains of C. neoformans can grow at 24oC, they cannot survive in vitro at 37oC, in 5% CO2, or at alkaline pH (10). Since these are similar to conditions in the host, one would predict that the calcineurin A mutant would not survive in the human host. In support of that prediction, Odom et al. have shown that such mutants are not pathogenic for immunosuppressed rabbits (10). Calcineurin A appears to be a basic requirement for C. neoformans survival in the host and consequently is a necessary factor for the pathogenicity of the organism.
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