Federal departments: Agriculture, Public health/Environment, Economic affairs (Industrial Property), OSTC; Federated authorities: Flemish community, French community, Walloon Region, Brussels Capital City Region.
1. A controlled and complementary extension of the holdings of biological reference material, namely pure cultures of bacteria, fungi and yeasts on the one hand, and plasmids on the other hand;
2. A continuous actualization of the corresponding information and the consolidation of the participation in the Microbial Information Network Europe, MINE project;
3. An active expansion of the public services, namely:
- the distribution of biological reference material and corresponding information (e.g. catalogues and databanks);
- the acceptation of public, security and patent deposits (in the framework of the Budapest Treaty and European directives) of biological material (including animal and human cell lines);
- the valorization of the available know how through services for third parties (e.g. isolation, identification, fine characterization and preservation of biological material, bioaudits, exclusive screening of unique strains for potential new products, etc.).
BCCM AIMS TO SHARE ITS EXPERIENCE AND KNOW HOW IN THE FIELD OF FUNDAMENTAL AND APPLIED MICRO-BIOLOGY TO THE BENEFIT OF ITS PARTNERS AND CLIENTS IN THE SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY.
BCCM IS THEREFORE COMBINING SCIENTIFIC EXPERTISE WITH QUALITY IN SERVICE.
The BCCM form a consortium of four complementary culture collections with a scientific background serving the international scientific and industrial community.
The consortium offers a wide range of services, such as:
1. Distribution of biological reference material:
The BCCM can immediately deliver around 45,000 extensively documented and authenticated pure cultures of bacteria, filamentous fungi and yeasts and over 1,300 plasmids to anywhere in the world. A special effort has been made so as to ensure the availability of the most important test and control strains.
2. Storage of biological materials:
One can distinguish between three types of deposit :
A. public deposits: these are strains and plasmids which are catalogued with reference to the depositor and are therefore freely available;
B. safe deposits: strains and plasmids which are deposited in ´secured custody´ and remain the exclusive property of the depositor. They are neither catalogued nor distributed. Safe deposits are made above all for major industrial or medical strains;
C. patent deposits: strains and plasmids which are deposited within the framework of the Belgian patent legislation or the international ´Budapest Treaty´. The material is not catalogued and is only made available to third parties under the very stringent conditions of the Budapest Treaty.
The BCCM accept patent and safe deposits of:
- bacteria, filamentous fungi and yeasts;
- human and animal cell lines (including hybridomas);
- genetic material (e.g. plasmids, RNA, oncogenes).
The BCCM also offer their clientele the possibility of freeze-drying biological material. Advice is also provided with regard to the choice of the optimal storage methods and cryoprotectants.
3. Searching for and providing relevant information:
The BCCM regularly publish catalogues and help customers to locate strains or plasmids with specific taxonomic and/or functional properties and the corresponding information.
4. Training and education:
Training sessions are organised for both groups and individuals.
5. Contract research:
The BCCM expertise encompasses, inter alia:
- the isolation, identification, cultivation and preservation of strains;
- molecular typing (RFLP, RAPD, AFLP, etc.) of industrially and medically important strains for (inter alia) Quality Assurance and patent purposes;
- exclusive screening of unique strains for potential new products (e.g. enzymes, antibiotics);
- resistance tests of materials such as wood, paints, textile, polymers, etc.;
- microbial audits of work or production environments;
- molecular biology (e.g. sequencing);
- Electron microscopy, etc.
The two principles which the BCCM are actively pursuing are firstly, a market/customer orientation, and secondly, a collaborative orientation.
The first principle means that the BCCM allows itself to be led by the specific desiderata of their quality-oriented clientele. They thus prove to be reliable and discrete partners in an increasing number of professional activities with academic and industrial groups.
Systematic work is also being done to progressively develop an ´Integral Quality Assurance´ (or IQA) policy.
The second policy line is being implemented via a network of reciprocally useful interactions with strong research groups inside and outside of Belgium, as well as via multilateral collaboration with other culture collections within the framework of international organisations such as:
- the ´World Federation for Culture Collections, WFCC´;
- the ´European Culture Collections´ Organization, ECCO´;
- the ´Microbial Strain Data Network, MSDN´;
- the ´Microbial Information Network Europe, MINE´;
To better support the two policy lines, in 1991 the BCCM consortium became a member of the ´Belgian Bioindustries Association - BBA´.
CC/001: BCCM/LMG, bacteria collection
CC/002: BCCM/LMBP, plasmids collection
CC/003: BCCM/MUCL, (agro)industrial fungi/yeasts collection
CC/004: BCCM/IHEM, biomedical fungi/yeasts collection
BCCM Newsletter
Brussels: Federal Science Policy Office (PE003)
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