When we use drugs produced by fungi we are often borrowing a fungal solution and rehousing it within our own bodies. Fungi are pharmaceutically prolific, and today we depend on them for many other chemicals besides penicillin: cyclosporine (an immunosuppressant drug that makes organ transplants possible), cholesterol-lowering statins, a host of powerful antiviral and anti-cancer compounds (including the multi-billion-dollar drug Taxol, originally extracted from the fungi that live within yew trees), not to mention alcohol (fermented by a yeast) and psilocybin (the active component in
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