Belgian Co-ordinated Collections of Micro-organisms
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| Motto | BCCM, great at small things |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1983 |
| Founder | Belgian Science Policy (Belspo) |
| Type | Non-profit organization, Biological Resource Center |
| Focus | To be a solution partner for providing services of quality in microbial and genetic resources for academia and industry |
| Location |
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| Services | Biological Resource Centre * bacteria * yeasts and fungi * plasmids * diatoms |
| Mission |
The BCCM consortium aims to : • acquire, preserve and distribute microbial and genetic resources, • identify and characterize these biological materials, • offer customer-oriented services, • increase the understanding of microorganisms and their function in ecosystems, • foster the application of biological resources. |
The BCCM consortium aims to :
• acquire, preserve and distribute microbial and genetic resources,
• identify and characterize these biological materials,
• offer customer-oriented services,
• increase the understanding of microorganisms and their function in ecosystems,
The Belgian Co-ordinated Collections of Micro-organisms (BCCM) is a Belgian government funded consortium of seven scientific institutions, who manage and exploit a collection of microbial and genetic resources. The consortium comprises more than 86,000 publicly available strains of bacteria including mycobacteria and cyanobacteria , filamentous fungi, yeasts, diatoms and plasmids.
BCCM is embedded in international initiatives such as the World Federation of Culture Collections (WFCC) and operates in compliance with the rules of the .
In 1983 the Belgian Council of Ministers decided to bring the microbial resources and the expertise available in different Belgian institutes together in a network of culture collections: with this the consortium of Belgian Co-ordinated Collections of Microorganisms (BCCM) saw the light of day.
In 1983, the BCCM consortium consisted of the microbial collections of one public scientific institution and two universities:
In 1990 the plasmid collection of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Ghent University was added to the consortium (BCCM/LMBP).
In 2011, 3 additional dedicated collections were included in the BCCM consortium:
Micro-organisms are an important raw material in biotechnology. The properties of bacteria, fungi, yeasts and diatoms are used in countless industrial applications and processes. Consider, for example, fermentation processes and the use of probiotics in foods, the production of antibiotics in medicine, the use of microorganisms as growth promoting elements in agriculture, as bioremediatiors on polluted sites, etc.
Moreover, the properties of numerous microbial species are still unknown. Therefore public culture collections truly are a treasure trove of biological material, which can be explored through screening projects, for example.
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Wikipedia