GREAT AT SMALL THINGS
This collection from the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK.CEN) provides historical reference plasmids for various incompatibility families. The collection also includes a set of bacterial host strains meant for cloning and in vitro packaging of and/or working with phages.
Since many years, the BCCM consortium is actively involved in European and international associations of culture collections such as the European Culture Collections' Organisation (ECCO) and the World Federation of Culture Collections (WFCC).
Prof. Jody Haig's research group (IRC, VIB, Ghent, Belgium) developed a highly efficient Gateway- and recombinase-mediated cassette exchange (RMCE)-compatible system to target conditional and/or inducible constructs to the ROSA26 locus of F1 hybrid Bl6/129 ESCs, called G4 ROSALUC ES cells.
This technology allows researchers to easily create conditional and/or inducible ROSA26 alleles in a time/cost efficient manner.
Dr Julia Kleinteich has joined in November 2013 the team of BCCM/ULC to investigate the presence of cyanotoxins and secondary metabolites in the polar cyanobacterial strains of the public collection. She has obtained a post-doc fellowship for 2 years granted by the University of Liège thanks to the Federal subsidies for research and the FP7 people Marie Curie COFUND.
Lactarius stubbei Wisitrassameewong & Verbeken was named in honour of Dirk Stubbe, the assistant curator of BCCM/IHEM. He discovered this new species during a biological expedition in a rainforest reserve in Malaysia. The collected specimens were studied and described by mycologists of the Mycology Research Group of the Ghent University. The mushroom has a reddish brown cap, distant gills and a brownish pink stipe. It has a sweet smell and when damaged, it exudes a white latex that turns yellow.
The TDR bank is by far the most extensive and well-characterized collection of TB strains anywhere in the world today. We are proud that this resource has been entrusted to us.
Dr Leen Rigouts, manager of the BCCM/ITM public collection of mycobacterial strains
Only 2 Europeans receive this distinction
Since 2005, the multi-site quality management system of BCCM is certified as meeting the requirements of the international ISO 9001 standard. In May 2013, BCCM received the annual audit of the external certification body (SGS) and succeeded in the maintenance of the certification ISO 9001 covering the eight entities of the consortium (see the BCCM certificate). This certification attests the effectiveness of the quality management system in place and the spirit of continuous improvement of BCCM.
For more than 30 years, Danielle Janssens was the BRC manager at the BCCM/LMG bacteria collection. She started in 1982, with the late Prof. De Ley as first director of the collection and since then she occupied a pivotal position for the collection under the consecutive promoter-directorships of Prof. Karel Kersters, Prof. Jean Swings and presently Prof. Paul De Vos.
It is clear that her national as well as international engagements were of upmost importance in underpinning the fundamentals and the present success and importance of the BCCM/LMG bacteria collection.
In addition to the supply of bacteria in freeze-dried form, in frozen form, or as active cultures, BCCM/LMG also provides high quality genomic DNA from any publicly available strain on request. Genomic DNA is obtained using a protocol that includes at least two chloroform extraction steps. Quality control is performed spectrophotometrically and by agarose gel electrophoresis. A minimum amount of 2,5 µg of high molecular mass (average length over 10 kbp) genomic DNA with an A260nm/A280nm ratio of 1.7-2.2 is guaranteed to the customer.
