Edition 15 - May, 2004 |
Prof. Swings is advisor for the BRC of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Prof. J. Swings (Laboratory for Microbiology, UGent and President of the WFCC),
Prof. H. Sugawara (NIG, Japan), Dr. K. Suzuki (NITE, Japan), Dr. S.-C. Song
(ATCC, USA) and Dr. L. Réchaussat (INSERM, France) were appointed advisors for
the Biological Resource Centres of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, by the Vice-President,
Prof. C. Zhu.
On February 15th, the Chinese Academy of Sciences sponsored an international
symposium: “Towards a New Era’s Microbial Resource Centre” in Beijing. At this
symposium, it was announced that China is planning an important investment at
its Centre for Biological Resources. The CAS comprises 11 ex situ banks dispersed
over northern, southern; and southwestern China with micro-organisms, cell lines
of human, animal and plant origin, viruses, algae, cell banks of endangered
species and a node for information networks.
 On
the first row, from left to right: K. Suzuki, J. Swings, L. Réchaussat,
C. Zhu, S.-C. Song, H. Sugawara |
Since 2000, several Chinese collections have become members of the World Federation
for Culture Collections. The announcement from China signi- fies a major advance
in the international developments concerning biological resource centres (BRC).
Prof. C. Zhu is the driving force behind these developments, which are moving
towards the “BRC initiative” of the OECD.
The OECD has already organised several think tanks on the role of biological
resources in the current bio-economy, one of the first spin-offs being the
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) initiative.
The Laboratory for Microbiology of Prof. Jean Swings has been working together
with different Chinese laboratoria since the 1980s, and several Chinese scientists
have visited Ghent for short or longer periods. This collaboration has already
resulted in a number of publications and a PhD.
In 1998, a 6-year project was started in collaboration with the Institute of Microbiology
(CCCM/IMCAS, headed by Prof. Liu) on the characterisation of bioactive Streptomyces
isolates from China. This project is being funded by both the Belgian and the
Chinese Federal Science Policy Offices, in the framework of a bilateral cooperative
research agreement.
Contact:
Prof. Jean Swings
BCCM/LMG
Tel.: +32 (0)9 264 51 16
Fax: +32 (0)9 264 53 46
E-mail: bccm.lmg@UGent.be
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Acronyms
ATCC: American Type Culture Collection (www.atcc.org)
CAS: Chinese Academy of Sciences (www.casbic.ac.cn)
CCCM / IMCAS: Chinese Culture Collection or Microorganisms / Institute
for Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
GBIF: Global Biodiversity Information Facility (www.gbif.org)
INSERM: Institut National de la Sante et de la recherche Médical
(www.inserm.fr)
Laboratorium voor Microbiologie (http://lmg.ugent.be)
NIG: National Institute of Genetics (www.nig.ac.jp)
NITE: National Institute of Technology and Evaluation (www.nite.go.jp)
OECD: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (www.oecd.org)
WFCC: World Federation for Culture Collections (www.wfcc.info)
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BCCM