Inter-laboratory evaluation, development and validation of fungal preservation regimes used in different European biological resources centres (BRCs)

Successful preservation of fungi relies on the application of optimised preservation protocols that do not compromise the genomic integrity of the organism. Most major European BRCs use lyophilisation and cryopreservation as the methods of choice. Although based on generic principals, protocols can vary between institutions and do not always result in successful recovery. In order to evaluate the efficacy of the methods, a range of fungal strains were circulated around partner collections in the EMbaRC project and the organisms preserved using the standard methods used in each collection. The effectiveness of preservation was assessed using a series of techniques including DNA fingerprintin…

EMbaRC designing training and e-learning materials for biological resource centres

International audience; The European Consortium of Microbial Resource Centres (EMbaRC, www.embarc.eu) is a research infrastructure project gathering together the major microbial Biological Resource Centres (BRCs) in Europe. These cultures collections have a long and respected tradition in training people that are involved in microbial taxonomy, preservation and management. Advanced and bespoke courses on related topics add high value to the European educational community and create a knowledge-based training network. Under the framework of EMbaRC, the training programmes offered by the consortium were surveyed and schemes were proposed to establish an educational community to create a knowl…

Trans-national access to BRCs with EMbaRC : a user-oriented approach to foster research and innovation