https://genestogenomes.org/nsf-puts-collections-and-instrument-development-programs-on-hiatus/ A blog from the Genetics Society of America Mon, 11 Apr 2016 22:17:23 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 https://genestogenomes.org/nsf-puts-collections-and-instrument-development-programs-on-hiatus/#comment-4468 Mon, 11 Apr 2016 22:17:23 +0000 https://genestogenomes.org/?p=5728#comment-4468 Always a bridesmaid: Living collections, especially those holding microbes, seem to get overlooked in every discussion of collection policy.
Although microbe collections (historically, culture collections) impact every field of biology, the benefit (publications) are removed from the cost and so it is difficult to demonstrate impact. While some collections have pseudo h-indexes in the low hundred, some have incalculable impact. The NRRL collection lists over 49,000 citations using strains from their collection.
The NSF support for living microbe collections has been a small program for many years. The Fungal Genetics Stock Center was organized with GSA input in 1960 and was supported for over 50 years. Now with support from Kansas State University, the FGSC has had to raise fees and orders have dropped over half.
The US Culture Collection Network (www.usccn.org) supports a distributed network of living microbe collections embedded in universities and research institutions with relevant expertise, with robust quality control, and as a partner to Tech Transfer offices and Regulatory agencies. Other countries and regions are developing such networks (eg, http://www.mirri.org in the EU or bccm.belspo.be/ in Belgium, or http://www.abrcn.net in Asia), and while the US has some of the most well established collections, there is neither a national plan, nor even a clear division of responsibilities. Check out the American Phytopathological Society plan for a National Plant-microbial germplasm system http://www.apsnet.org/members/outreach/ppb/Pages/CultureCollections.aspx

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