Project

Biological Resource Centre (BRC)

Code
12Y02310
Duration
01 January 2011 → 31 December 2013
Funding
Federal funding: various
Promotor
Research disciplines
  • Natural sciences
    • Microbiology
    • Systems biology
  • Medical and health sciences
    • Laboratory medicine
    • Microbiology
    • Laboratory medicine
    • Laboratory medicine
    • Microbiology
Keywords
BCCM
 
Project description

The Belgian Coordinated Collections of Microorganisms (BCCM) are a consortium of decentralized collections of biological resources (Biological Resource Centers, BRCs), which currently contain important collections of bacteria (BCCM / LMG), agro-industrial fungi and yeasts ( BCCM / MUCL), bio-medical fungi and yeasts (BCCM / IHEM), plasmids, and DNA libraries (BCCM / LMBP). These collections of biological material, related information and scientific know-how 'are publicly available to the scientific community. The present project aims the project partners to enhance the heritage and the domain of the BCCM by attaching additional collections of interesting organisms present in Belgian research institutions. Of the many research collections, three collections have been selected based on the size of their collection, their uniqueness, and the level of the associated scientific expertise: the Diatom collection of Ghent University, the collection of Polar Cyanobacteria of the University of Liege, and the collection of Mycobacteria from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. These three collections consist of biological resources that are currently very under-represented in culture collections worldwide, despite their interest in scientific and industrial and environmental and medical R & D applications.