Edition 16 - November, 2004
Edition 16 - November, 2004 |
BCCM participates in the Tenth International Congress of Culture Collections in Tsukuba, Japan |
Four years after the Brisbane meeting,
at which Prof. Jean Swings was elected
president of the WFCC, the Tenth International
Congress of Culture Collections
took place last October in the Japanese
science city of Tsukuba. With more than
13000 scientists working in about 300
research institutes, Tsukuba is indeed an
appropriate place for culture collections
to meet.
During the four year of his presidency,
Prof. Jean Swings, head of BCCM/
LMG, led the WFCC toward more
professional operation and provided
his successor a positive legacy, such
as enhanced WFCC representation in
UN bodies like the World Intellectual
Property Organization and other UN
specialised agencies as well as in international
scientific organizations and networks such as the GBIF (see the WFCC
website www.wfcc.info for more information).
During these years, Prof. Swings and
his assistant Dr. Virginie Storms were supported
financially by the Belgian Science
Policy, which refl ects Belgian efforts and
commitment to coordinated ex situ conservation
and sustainable exploitation of
microbiological resources not only in Belgium
but also world wide. This has also
contributed to greater visibility for the
WFCC. The general WFCC election held
last summer resulted in the election of a
new Executive Board with Dr. David Smith
from CABI International as the president.
The Executive Board includes the BCCM
international cooperation officer Philippe Desmeth , who was designated secretary by
his fellow executive board members.
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In addition to coordinating and promoting
the collaboration of culture collections, the
international congresses of culture collections
are also scientific venues and opportunities
for culture-collection managers to
discuss matters of common interest and
of vital importance for culture collections,
which are interfaces between providers
and users of microbiological resources and
play a key role in biotechnology.
scientific and technical challenges, legal,
socio-economic and political developments
are increasingly affecting their work and
force them constantly to consider the way
they operate. The depositories of microbial
material have evolved dramatically, proactively
or reactively, from providers of microbiological
material for the scientific sector
to resource and service providers for the society
at large. Those that could not change
have disappeared and with them valuable
documented microbiological assets. The
others still face difficult times. They must
constantly adapt and increasingly integrate
new paradigms in order to be able to propose
adequate responses to new demands.
Dr. Toro Nakahara1 of the National Institute
of Advanced Industrial Science and
Technology invited the BCCM international
cooperation officer to co-organise a symposium
on the “Appropriate IPR for Successful
Biotechnology”. Building on his experience
with the workshop on IPR related to microbial
genetic resources in Brisbane in 2000
funded by the EU DG Research and more
recently his participation in the Melbourne
WFCC workshop on the industrial use of
microorganisms in December 2003, the
BCCM international cooperation officer collaborated
with his colleague to build a very
successful workshop attended by a large
audience that literally filled the meeting
room despite other parallel scientific sessions.
Such attendance shows the increasing
concern of culture-collection managers
for meeting the needs and expectations of
their customers.
The main message communicated during
the symposium was the increasing role of
culture collections as interfaces between
providers and users of microbiological resources.
As such, culture-collection managers
understand perhaps more than others
the role of intellectual property rights in
innovative biotechnology and the necessity
of coordination between regimes organizing
access and benefit sharing in the
framework of the CBD and patent laws,
including the Budapest Treaty. Being at
the same time providers and users, culture
collections need to adapt to implement
coherently these diverse international, supra-
national, and national laws, including
the many sets of laws governing the safe,
commercial, and ethical fl ows of biological
resources. In addition, culture collections
must also strive to attain economic
sustainability in a less favourable overall
economic situation. They cannot succeed
without appropriate funding and legal and
socio-economic expertise.
The abstracts of the workshop presentations
will soon be available on the WFCC
website (www.wfcc.info). Inquiries about
the proceedings of the Tenth International
Congress of Culture Collections
can be sent to BCCM email address bccm.coordination@belspo.be.
Philippe Desmeth, Toro Nakahara1
Philippe Desmeth |
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