See text Cunninghamella is a genus of fungi in the order Mucorales, and the family Cunninghamellaceae.

[2] The genus was circumscribed by French mycologist Alphonse Louis Paul Matruchot in Ann.

[3] The genus name of Cunninghamella is in honour of David Douglas Cunningham (1843–1914), who was a Scottish doctor and researcher who worked extensively in India on various aspects of public health and medicine.

[4] As of  2015[update], Index Fungorum lists 13 valid species of Cunninghamella:[5] Members of this genus are often used in studies investigating the metabolism of drugs, because these species metabolize a wide range of drugs in manners similar to mammalian enzyme systems.

[6] Many species are also capable of oxidizing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a class of stable organic molecules that tends to persist in the environment and contains many known carcinogenic and mutagenic compounds.