Collections
The CBS culture collections of micro-organisms are
embedded in a scientific environment, which guarantees state of the art quality
checks and allowes the development of scientific programmes to improve the
quality of the material entrusted to them. CBS was actively involved in setting
the standards for modern long-term preservation as well as for data storage,
recognizing the necessity of data exchangeability. Already in the eighties
common formats for microbial data were developed, which brought the collections
to the forefront of digitalization, and greatly facilitated the development of a
common catalogue realized in the EU programme CABRI (Common Access to
Biotechnological Resources and Information (www.cabri.org).
CBS was actively involved in setting up criteria and minimal demands for culture
collections within the CABRI framework. In short, CBS developed from a culture
collection into a Biological Resource Centre (BRC) according to the OECD
definition:
Biological Resource Centres are an essential part of the infrastructure
underpinning life sciences and biotechnology. They consist of service providers
and repositories of the living cells, genomes of organism, and information
relating to heredity and the functions of biological systems. BRCs contain
collections of culturable organisms (e.g. micro-organisms, plant, animal and
human cells), replicable parts of these organisms, cells and tissues, as well as
databases containing molecular, physiological and structural information
relevant to these collections and related bioinformatics. BRCs must meet the
high standards of quality and expertise demanded by the international community
of scientists and industry for the delivery of biological resources on which R&D
in the life sciences and the advancement of biotechnology depends.
Biological Resource Centres – Underpinning the Future of Life Sciences and
Biotechnology (click
here for PDF).
The collections of CBS offer a comprehensive coverage of the culturable
biodiversity of the fungal Kingdom (over 50,000 strains), while the prokaryotes
are represented by unique collections of bacterial mutants, hosts suitable for
DNA research, genetically engineered plasmids, broad-host-range plasmids and
phages. A large staff of scientists with expertise on every systematic group
represented in the collections and a dedicated staff of technicians for
maintenance and distribution, guarantee the quality of the strains and the
maintenance of all regulations concerning biosafety.
The Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD)
The CBD, which is ratified by over 180 countries including the Netherlands
affects all living genetic resources collected since 1993, thus including
microbial strains. The Convention gives sovereign rights to the country of
origin and aims at fair and equitable benefit sharing, especially with regard to
the country of origin in the case of successful economic exploiting of these
genetic resources. It requires a Prior Informed Consent (PIC) from depositors,
and a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) or Mutually Agreed Terms (MAT) from
clients. Although the implications for depositors, culture collections and
clients are not always clear, and appropriate institutions often not in place,
efforts are being undertaken to reach a workable solution.
It is the responsibility of the collector of microbial genetic resources to
ensure that the material has been collected with a PIC of the country of origin.
It is the responsibility of the depositor to ensure that the deposit of the
material in an open collection does not infringe on any (inter)national
obligation. To enable clients of the BRC to act in agreement with the CBD and/or
to enable the BRC to play an intermediate role, CBS will inform the client of
the country of origin; as a consequence no material is accepted with unknown
origin.
CBS strains are distributed under the conditions of the CBD. It is the
responsibility of the client to ensure that the obligations under the CBD are
fulfilled. In order to ensure traceability of the material, distribution of
strains to third parties is not allowed.
Strains obtained from CBS used for publications should be cited with their CBS
number.