Federal departments: Agriculture, Public health/Environment, Economic affairs (Industrial Property), Science Policy; Federated authorities: Flemish Community, French Community, Walloon Region, Brussels Capital City Region.
The BCCM are microbial genetic resources centres. They have the task to support and to assist in the development of the life sciences and biotechnology in Belgium and Europe.
The objectives of the 6th phase of the BCCM support action are clustered in 3 groups:
• First of all, the BCCM must continue to fulfil the obligations that have been assigned to them in the frame of the Budapest Treaty. This means that the BCCM collections accept patent deposits of bacteria, fungi, yeast, animal and human cell lines as well as of genetic material such as plasmids.
• Secondly, the BCCM collections need to be transformed into “Biological Resource Centres, BRCs”, as defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). To this end, the BCCM must obtain an official recognition of their quality system (certification / accreditation). Furthermore, in distributing their biological material, BRCs must take into account the necessary biosecurity measures. They must have the necessary technology to fluently exchange information with other organisations. To transform the BCCM into BRCs a number of concrete objectives have been put together into a strategic plan.
• Finally, the BCCM’s expertise must be reinforced and valorised. The cooperation between the BCCM collections and other collections and research groups will be stimulated by means of a scientific programme entitled “Action for the promotion of and co-operation with the BCCM”. In the framework of this action 8 projects are financed.
The Belgian Coordinated Collections of Micro-organisms, BCCM constitute a consortium of four service culture collections. These four collection preserve different types of biological material (bacteria, yeasts, fungi and plasmids). De research and service activities that are based on this material, can not only lead to a better knowledge of the biological diversity, but can also yield some economic and social benefits.
The BCCM consortium aims to share the biological material of its collections, related information, as well as its experience and know-how in the field of fundamental and applied (micro)biology, to the benefit of its partners and clients in the academic and industrial communities.
The BCCM activities consist of :
• preserving and distributing biological material
- 18.000 bacteria
- 30.300 fungi
- 3.800 yeasts
- 1.900 plasmids
- 20 DNA libraries
• accepting deposits for patent purposes, being an “International Depositary Authority” under the provisions of the Budapest Treaty
- bacteria, filamentous fungi and yeasts
- human and animal cell lines (incl. hybridomas)
- genetic material (e.g. plasmids)
• furnishing services ranging from single strain identification or characterisation to extended contract research projects
• scientific collaborations
C3/001: BCCM/LMG, bacteria collection
C3/002: BCCM/LMBP, plasmid collection
C3/003: BCCM/MUCL, agro-industrial fungi and yeasts collection
C3/004: BCCM/IHEM, biomedical fungi and yeasts collection
C3/005: The computer action plan of the BCCM
C3/012: Prototype of a distributed FAME identification system for improved identification of prokaryotes
C3/013: Improvement of the identification of fluorescent pseudomonads: a molecular approach
C3/014: Elaborating Public Culture Collections of Diatoms, Polar Cyanobacteria and Mycobacteria in Belgium
C3/017: Improved genomic identification of lactic acid bacteria and acetic acid bacteria
C3/018: Screening and genetic manipulation of fungi for improved protein secretion and N-glycosylation
C3/019: Genomics and proteomics of Aspergillus fumigatus (GEPRAF)
C3/020: Plasmid resources for Arabidopsis reverse genetics via RNA interference
C3/022: Characterization of fungal species and mycotoxins contaminating silages in Belgium
