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CABI International


Microbial capacity

Harnessing biodiversity could provide solutions to natural resource depletion and to environmental, agricultural, food, forestry and public health concerns. 

 

Currently: 

  • Only 5-10% of the microbial world is described 
  • Little is known about in situ conservation of microbes
  • Microorganisms underpin all life on earth, but are rarely mentioned in biodiversity action plans
  • There is a vast potential for exploitation through the discovery and application of new drugs, enzymes and other natural products
  • To ensure optimal preservation of microbial diversity, microbes should be preserved in a stable manner using optimised techniques 

Our activities: 

Utilisation of microorganisms

Microorganisms can often be used to develop innovative new products, as seen in the pharmaceutical and food and drink worlds. CABI undertakes projects to find innovative uses for microorganisms. Please click on the link to find some recent examples of our work in this area.

 
 Microbial biodiversity
Understanding the microbial populations and their function in the environment is essential in land management, agriculture and impact of factors such as pollution and climate change. Please click on the link to find some recent examples of our work in this area. 
 
 Sanitary and phytosanitary
CABI has worked with Departments of Agriculture around the world to help set up quarantine facilities backed up by diagnostic facilities and reference collections. 
  

Culture collection management and operation

Living organisms, their cells or their replicable parts (e.g. genomes, plasmids, viruses, cDNAs) are the basic elements of the life sciences and biotechnology. 
 
Organisms are utilised in large numbers as living reference materials for testing, identity and as the producers of compounds, fuel and food.
 
CABI has held the UK National Collection of Fungus Cultures since 1947 which houses over 28,000 living strains and 400,000 dried reference specimens.  
 
No one collection or country can maintain all organisms and CABI has worked in 19 countries helping to establish collections and has supported regional training programmes in Asia, Africa, Caribbean, Europe and South America on management and utilisation of microbial diversity. 
 
Recently we have worked on some collection networking projects in Europe to help develop improved quality management systems and networking e.g. Common Access to Biological Resources and Information (CABRI) and European Biological Resource Centre Network (EBRCN).
 
We have worked on a range of projects in this area, please click on the link to find out more about our work.

 
 Primary preservation research
Preserving the properties of production strains is vital for businesses and organisations whose products or outputs have culture inputs.  Food and drink companies, pharmaceuticals and all employing biotechnology use cultures to develop and manufacture their products and in their research.  If problems such as mutation of the strain arise, they will need to return to the original culture to ensure they have the initial form of the culture with all the properties needed. 
 
As well as offering safe deposit services for organisations looking to preserve their cultures, we undertake research into finding the best methods of preserving organisms to ensure that strain drift and loss of properties doesn’t occur.
 
Culture collections around the world generally use freeze-drying and cryopreservation below -139۫°C for long-term preservation. Our research has found that, if misapplied, these techniques can damage organisms.  We have developed techniques of assessing accurately whether cultures are preserved without strain drift or loss of properties, which go beyond just testing for survival of the organism. 
     
 Spoilage caused by  microrganisms
Fungi and bacteria cause significant losses of stored products such as food products in supermarkets. We work to detect, diagnose and resolve such problems. To find out about our recent work in this area please click on the link or you can read some case studies below. 
  

Our people

Alan Buddie / Paul Cannon / Thelma Caine / Joan Kelley / Paul Kirk / Sharon Lawrence / David Minter / Lisa Offord / Matthew Ryan / David Smith ..

 
Our sponsors include:

BBSRC / BCCM / CBS / CCAP / CECT / Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) / European Collection of Cell Cultures (ECCAC) / Makerere University / NBAIM / NCIMB / NCPV / National Collection of Pathogenic Fungi / National Collection of Type Cultures / NCYC