The National Collection of Industrial, Food and Marine Bacteria (NCIMB) based on the University of Aberdeen campus which houses the major UK collection of non-pathogenic bacteria, is playing a leading role in the custodianship of privately owned bacterial collections whose survival is under threat.
As a first step in a new “rescue” programme, the world famous Nathan Smith/Ruth Gordon Bacillus Collection has been saved from extinction and transferred from Virginia in the United States to Aberdeen. This collection of around 1700 bacteria contains strains which are known to produce important compounds of industrial and medical value.
NCIMB houses more than 8000 organisms of interest or importance to the environment, agricultural, pharmaceutical, industrial and food sectors that have been collected over the last 50 years and maintained for scientists throughout the UK and the rest of the world to study. Without custodians such as NCIMB, scientific progress in the discovery of new drugs and industrially important compounds would be made that much more difficult. NCIMB, and the many collections like it, are potential reservoirs of as yet untapped and undiscovered natural resources that could help solve many of man’s present and future problems. It is therefore vitally important that these bacterial collections are preserved for future generations of scientists.
There are over 600 recognised national culture collections within the World Federation of Culture Collections (WFCC) and probably thousands more which are privately owned and may represent an individual scientist’s life work. Each of these collections are precious in their own right in that no one knows the potential locked up within each of the microbes stored in these biological treasure houses –perhaps a new antibiotic to combat “superbugs” like MRSA which have developed resistance to common antibiotics; perhaps a new anti cancer or AIDS drug; or perhaps a non chemical control agent for a plant disease. The possibilities are enormous, but only if experts look after these tiny life forms until their potential is discovered. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, many of these irreplaceable collections are being lost.
Dr Peter Green, the Curator of the NCIMB collection, is chairperson of the WFCC endangered culture collection committee and is one of the driving forces behind international efforts to save these tiny but valuable scientific assets. He said: “Where collections of microorganisms can no longer be properly looked after on their present site, are in danger of imminent demise, and request the safe house status offered by a National Collection such as NCIMB, it is incumbent upon members of the scientific community to find an alternative home for these endangered collections which has the appropriate expertise.”
He continued: “It is the intention of NCIMB to begin a programme of rescuing, where appropriate, many of these endangered collections with a view to eventually screening them for potentially useful compounds and applications needed in tomorrows rapidly changing world of agriculture, industry and medicine.”
Bacteria often receive bad publicity because of their action in causing sickness and spoiling food. However, in many cases these tiny organisms can be beneficial to man. Examples of some of these benefits include to the production of antibiotics for the treatment of diseases and infections; the role of bacteria in producing industrially important enzymes which help man clean up polluted land, or help in providing modern households with biological washing powders. Bacteria have also been used from ancient times to produce various food products such as cheese and yoghurt, through to the more exotic fermented products such as soy sauce.
Photocall/Interview Details: Photographers and Journalists are invited to view the collection and interview Dr Peter Green, curator, NCIMB at 10:30 am on Tuesday, November 28 at the AURIS building, St Machar Drive.
Further Information: Tina Kenworthy, Press Officer Tel (01224) 273778
University Press Office on telephone +44 (0)1224-273778 or email a.ramsay@admin.abdn.ac.uk.