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European Consortium of Microbial Resources Centres – EMbaRC

A European consortium of microbiological resources centres was launched on 18 March 2009 at the INRA Research Centre in Rennes. The European Consortium of Microbial Resources Centres (EMbaRC) aims at harmonizing the systems for conserving and identifying bacteria and microscopic fungi in the different European countries and also at developing DNA banks and reinforcing biosafety. The goal is also to preserve and valorize microbiological biodiversity.

The properties of microorganisms have been harnessed by man for thousands of years, particularly in brewing and baking but their uses continue to expand not just in food and healthcare but in almost all areas of industry and environmental maintenance. Their authentication, characterisation, stable storage and supply are a major contribution to the knowledge-based bioeconomy.

EMbaRC is an EU project funded under the Seventh Framework Programme Research Infrastructures (INFRA-2008-1.1.2.9: Biological Resources Centres (BRCs)) for microorganisms. It aims to improve, coordinate and validate microbial resource centre (MRC) delivery to European and International researchers from both public and private sectors. The EMbaRC project is a mixture of networking, access, training and research.

To ensure harmonisation of the quality of MRCs, EMbaRC plans to implement the current OECD best practice guidelines and emerging national standards for Biological Resource Centres (BRCs) at the international level. Outreach and training activities will enable not only the EMbaRC consortium but all European collections to operate according to the standards required to deliver products and services of comparable and consistent quality thus meeting customer expectations both present and future. The EMbaRC project takes European collection networking to new heights of coordination and efficiency providing new services and better access for users. The opportunity will be taken to work more closely with the user community. A one-stop access to the collections of EMbaRC and the wider European BRC community via a searchable web portal will be provided, building on the outcomes of the previous EU projects, CABRI and EBRCN, whilst adopting appropriate new IT technologies.

Access and high-quality support and training to research teams are offered from the consortium partners via calls for access, enabling trainees to work in the partner facilities accessing staff, resources and technologies.

The research part of the EMbaRC project will deliver new methods for strain and DNA preservation, novel techniques for identifying species and high throughput screening for enzymes of industrial interest.

The networking elements will give better access to authentic microorganisms and validated associated data and provide a set of business models to increase self-sustainability of BRCs. This project creates the European node of the OECD envisaged Global Biological Resource Centre Network and brings together: 

Written by :  Communications Department
Label for the news :  Article
Date for the news :  2011.03.08
Date of creation : 22/05/2009
Date of last update : 25/05/2009

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