Edition 0/96 |
Interview:
Co-ordinating Quality Services |
From the penthouse of Belgium's Federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs (OSTC), a three-person team catalyses and co-ordinates the BCCM's decentralized activities.
The decor of the BCCM's office is striking: a large antique mirror, an open fire, romantic paintings and many other features typical of the few remaining 'maisons de maîtres' in Brussels' 'Quartier Leopold' - once home to the bourgeois aristocracy, now the bustling centre at the heart of Europe.
This office is 'home' to the members of the BCCM Co-ordination Team: Mr Jan De Brabandere (BCCM Co-ordinator), Ms Marleen Bosschaerts (BCCM Quality and Regulatory Affairs Manager) and Mr Frederic Lemoine (BCCM Information Manager).
BCCM News: Mr De Brabandere, when and why was the BCCM founded?
JDB: The BCCM's origins go back to 1983, when a study by the well-known consultants, Bureau Van Dyk , commissioned by the Belgian government, clearly indicated that the four centres of excellence that now constitute the BCCM had the full potential to become a high quality consortium of complementary service-culture collections. It was felt that the considerable patrimony of well-documented and authenticated biological resources, and the broad range of skills in the fields of biology and microbiology - both fundamental and applied - should be exploited more fully to the benefit of academia and industry.
How has the BCCM evolved since then?
JDB: In the first phase of development, the BCCM's biological resources were verified for authenticity and purity. We reviewed our entire collection - a tremendous task - and scheduled reidentifications wherever there was the slightest doubt as to the identity or quality of a sample.
Then, in 1989, we launched the first series of BCCM Catalogues - 6 000 examples of which have been circulated world-wide. That was really the start of an almost exponential phase of expansion. Since 1989, the BCCM has welcomed 300 to 400 new clients each year.
How do you explain this rather successful evolution?
JDB: I think it's due to our client-orientated, co-operative policies, firmly rooted in quality assurance. For example, to coincide with the launch of our first catalogues, we polled our clients on what they expected from a service platform such as ours. Then, we translated their comments into practical guidelines for the BCCM Collections - guidelines that are under continuous reappraisal.
So what sort of service do the BCCM's clients typically require?
JDB: Our services are tailor-made to each client but some factors are clearly relevant in all cases: reliability, flexibility - such as 'just in time' delivery - and, of course, discretion.
This last point is fundamental. That's why the BCCM operates the most rigorous security and confidentiality measures. Within this framework, the nature of each and every service - from the simplest of culture deliveries to strategic contract research - remains a closely guarded secret between the two parties involved, those parties being the specific BCCM collection and the client. Even the BCCM Co-ordination Team is not informed of sensitive information, and every member of the BCCM's staff is bound by a strict confidentiality agreement.
Apart from conserving and distributing biological materials, does the BCCM have a more extended portfolio of services?
JDB: Yes, we do, but the distribution of bacteria, filamentous and yeast-like fungi, and plasmids - and in particular, test and reference strains - remains an important core activity. Besides this, the BCCM shares and 'valorizes' its collective know how through individual and group training sessions as well as bilateral contract agreements. In this way, we continue to build on our expertise in the fields of isolation, cultivation, characterization, identification and cryopreservation of strains.
For example, as a result of explorations in a variety of biodiversity 'hot spots' throughout the world, mycologists from the 'Mycothèque de l'Université catholique de Louvain - BCCM/MUCL' have discovered exciting new strains that display, under certain conditions, very peculiar metabolic profiles. The biotechnology industry, and pharmaceutical companies and enzyme producers in particular, are most interested to screen these materials for new natural product leads. But I can't tell you any more than that, of course.
Presumably, the BCCM's activities are not always so exotic.
JDB: Naturally, the BCCM does have many more down-to-earth activities. I should like to stress, however, that these are still of the utmost importance to our clients. Food producers, for example, may request our help with microbial contamination problems such as pathogens, food spoilers and package deteriorators. After identification of the 'nasty bugs', we sometimes send in a trouble-shooting team to locate their source and remedy the situation. This may demand an audit of the production process to identify its 'critical control points'.
Another of our activities is to assist with Total Quality Management - or TQM - Programmes. As part of TQM, we're 'fingerprinting' starter cultures such as brewers' yeasts or the lactic acid bacteria used by the dairy industry and salami producers. Most of these producers also want their production strains to be identified and securely preserved as a safe deposit at the BCCM.
You might be surprised to hear the names of the brands of beer, yoghurt and salami that rely on the BCCM's expertise. But these, of course, remain a closely-guarded secret.
Are such services aimed at the multinational sector, small and medium sized enterprises or non profit-making organisations?
JDB:All three - and equally so. We aim to serve every professional dealing with any issue - large or small - of microbiological nature. The widely-ranging activities of our clients are indicative of the many fields in which our services can be of benefit.
Take, for instance, the agricultural sector, where the use of biopesticides and biofertilizers is on the increase; or the food sector where, in addition to the contamination problems that I mentioned earlier, micro-organisms are used to produce bread, wine, cheese and sauerkraut, to name but a few examples.
In the chemical sector also, micro-organisms are used in the production processes of enzymes, solvents, amino acids, vitamins, biodegradable plastics and aromas, for example. And bioremediation strains are being used increasingly in the environment to purify water, clear oil spills - such as in the Exxon Valdez case - degrade solid waste, and much more. It's hard to imagine an economic sector that cannot be served by the BCCM.
If further proof were needed, I could also cite examples of our work with the wood, textile, electronic and paint industries, principally in the area of biodeterioration; or in the banking and insurance sectors where 'bioaudits' of the working environments are helping to reduce the incidence of 'sick building syndrome', for instance.
Ms Bosschaerts, what does the BCCM do to guarantee the quality of its services?
MB: This is an essential point for the BCCM. Quality means client satisfaction, and as such it underpins all of our main policies. In consequence, the BCCM Co-ordination Team is progressively implementing a TQM Programme, as Jan touched on earlier.
Our underlying philosophy is that TQM guarantees cost effectiveness and efficiency, and that this ultimately determines the degree of success of the BCCM.
Of course, this is true for every service orientated organization, but remember that the slightest impurity in a culture supply can jeopardize a whole production run or series of experiments, so we must take particularly stringent measures to ensure the quality of our materials and the reproducibility of the data that we provide. Our clients need to know that we have taken every possible precaution to ensure that the materials that we deliver will behave exactly as described in our catalogues.
To this end, the Co-ordination Team established and strictly maintains the BCCM's Standard Operating Procedures. These include regular checks on viability, purity and stability of BCCM strains. Finally, quality in administration - effective information management and rapid delivery for example - are hallmarks of our service.
To what international guidelines does the BCCM adhere?
MB: As far as possible, we respect the guidelines of the World Federation for Culture Collections. This means that the BCCM uses at least two methods of preservation, including cryopreservation wherever possible, and keeps samples at two distinct locations.
Our TQM Programme is guided by the EN 45001 standard for testing-laboratories and the widely-acclaimed ISO 9000 bench-mark.
Judging by the extent of the BCCM's catalogues, Mr Lemoine, you must have a lot of data to handle.
FL: That's right. Roughly speaking, the BCCM has two main pools of data. On the one hand, we have the information on the BCCM's biological resources; on the other hand, the data on our services and clients. We employ modern information and telecommunications technologies to manage and exploit these precious data resources.
JDB: In this respect, it is worthwhile mentioning that the BCCM is one of the founding partners of the Microbial Information Network Europe - or MINE - and provides on-line access to their electronic catalogue data through DIMDI, the Deutsches Institut für Medizinische Dokumentation und Information in Cologne.
Is the BCCM active on the Internet?
FL: Together with some of the major biological resource centres in Europe, the BCCM is discussing a project entitled 'Common Access to Biological Resources Information' - or CABRI - for the World Wide Web. The proposers of the CABRI project hope to obtain some funding from the European Commission, through its BIOTECH Programme within the Fourth Framework Programme. In any case, we intend to get the BCCM's biological resources data centralized and on-line on our server here in Brussels.
Mr De Brabandere, you mentioned earlier the emphasis that the BCCM places on co-operative policy. Would you like to expand on this further?
JDB: Our co-operative policy exists on two levels. First of all, within the BCCM consortium, where data and know how is exchanged on a continual basis and, where appropriate, pooled to tackle a particular service or client problem. Second, the BCCM consortium is an important node in a world-wide network of top level research teams.
We also participate in multilateral co-operation with other culture collections, within the framework of the international organizations such as the European Culture Collections Organization and the World Federation for Culture Collections.
Finally, patent protection of biological material is a much-debated subject at present. What role does the BCCM play as far as this is concerned?
JDB: Since 1992, the BCCM has enjoyed so-called 'IDA' status, according to the Budapest Treaty(3). This means that we can accept, for patent purposes, deposits of bacteria, filamentous and yeast-like fungi, animal cells - including hybridomas - as well as genetic materials such as plasmids and RNA.
MB: A single patent deposit with one of the BCCM Collections meets the requirements of not only the European Patent Office but also the patent offices in Australia, most West European countries, the Commonwealth of Independent States and a number of other East European countries, as well as Japan and the US - I think we can be proud of being amongst the 24 IDAs world-wide.
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