Belgian Co-ordinated Collections of Micro-organisms
| Motto | BCCM, great at small things |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1983 |
| Founder | Belgian Science Policy (Belspo) |
| Type | Non-profit organization, Biological resource center |
| Location |
|
| Services |
Biological Resource Centre * bacteria * yeast and fungi * plasmids * diatoms |
| Mission | To be a solution partner for providing services of quality in microbial and genetic resources for academia and industry |
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 fungi, bacteria and plasmids. The consortium manages a collection of more than 64,000 publicly available bacterial strains, filamentous fungi, yeasts, diatoms and plasmids.
History
The BCCM was founded in 1983 by combining the mycological collections of the Mycology Laboratory of the Scientific Institute of Public Health (BCCM/IHEM) and the Université Catholique de Louvain (BCCM/MUCL) with the bacterial collection of the Laboratory for Microbiology of the Faculty of Sciences of Ghent University (BCCM/LMG). In 1990 the plasmid collection of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Ghent University was added to the consortium (BCCM/LMBP). In 2011 the diatom collection of the Laboratory for Protistology & Aquatic Ecology of Gent University (BCCM/DCG), the mycobacteria collection of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp (BCCM/ITM) and the cyanobacteria collection of the Centre for Protein Engineering of the University of Liège (BCCM/ULC) joined the consortium.
Services
Public collection
The BCCM collections gather biological resources from all over the world, both from samples constructed or isolated by the collections themselves as samples provided by other scientists. These well-documented and authenticated strains of bacteria, filamentous and yeasts fungi (including the most important test and control strains), diatoms, plasmids and DNA libraries are made publicly available and are distributed world-wide.
Patent deposits
Since March 1, 1992, the BCCM consortium has been recognised as an "International Depositary Authority" (IDA) by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). Therefore, the BCCM collections can accept as patent deposits under the Budapest Treaty:
• all bacterial strains, except pathogens belonging to a hazard group higher than group 2 (BCCM/LMG)
• filamentous fungi and yeasts, including phytopathogens but excepting pathogenic fungi causing mycosis in man and animals belonging to a hazard group higher than group 2 (BCCM/MUCL)
• filamentous fungi and yeasts, including pathogens that cause mycosis in man and animals (BCCM/IHEM)
• human and animal cell lines, including hybridomas (BCCM/LMBP)
• genetic material in a host or in the form of isolated material (e.g. plasmids, oncogenes, RNA) (BCCM/LMBP)
See also
- Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO)
- World Federation for Culture Collections
- European Culture Collections' Organisation
- American Type Culture Collection (ATCC)
- Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen
Sources
- Belgian Co-ordinated Collections of Micro-organisms - BCCM
- Belgian Coordinated Collections of Micro-organisms (Dutch)
- Biological Resource Centre (French)