The Impact of the OECD Biological Resource Centre Initiative on traditional Culture Collections
David Smith
CABI Bioscience
Is it time for change in the traditional culture collection? Do all need to become Biological Resource Centres (BRCs) as defined by the OECD Initiative? There are certainly those that have jumped straight onto the bandwagon and called themselves BRCs but have they really grasped what the OECD Task Force intended. The OECD goal is to establish a Global System for BRCs, to provide a portal to access the world‘s living ex situ genetic resources via a single point of contact. It is certainly clear that for a BRC to participate in such a network it must operate to common quality standards and to control this process it is intended that all participants be accredited. This is not new to the WFCC, the need for common practices and procedures to meet a minimum standard was recognised by the WFCC at its very origins producing and publishing the WFCC guidelines for the establishment and operation of culture collections. Through its offices the WFCC has tried to co-ordinate activities in microbial and cell culture collections. What is still very clear is that the WFCC must continue to strive for co-ordinated effort to provide what today’s user wants from public service collections and help co-ordinate the effort to bridge the gap between the described microbial diversity and the vast majority yet to be discovered. The collection user wants more and collections are adapting to provide the information and products required.
The role of a BRC presented in the OECD working documents is similar to that of today’s traditional culture collection. Specifically, the OECD requires that BRCs must be entities compliant with appropriate national law, regulations and policies and have been constituted to fulfil many crucial roles, which include:
• Preservation and supply of biological resources for scientific, industrial, agricultural, environmental and medical R&D and applications,
• Performance of R&D on these biological resources,
• Conservation of biodiversity,
• Repositories of biological resources for protection on intellectual property,
• Resources for public information and policy formulation.
Many collections are currently operating to published guidelines or are seeking accreditation through existing mechanisms such as those set by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO). Are there benefits to both the collections themselves and their users if a traditional culture collection becomes an accredited BRC and joins the Global System for BRCs.