Microbial culture collections: European and national challenges to the research infrastructure (MIRRI)

Abstract

Alongside the beginning of modern microbiology with the isolation and pure culture techniques of microbes described by the British surgeon Joseph Lister in 1878 and the German physician Robert Kock in 1881, it seems that at the Institute of Hygiene, German University, in Prague, Franstisek Král established the first service culture collections about 1890. At the same time, other microbial collections started collected, preserved and exchange strains, such as the around 1880 Japanese Brewing Experimental Station (now National Institute of Brewing), in 1894, at the Brewery High School, the Mycothèque de lUniversité Catholique de Louvain (MUCL) was established, a founding member of the current BCCM consortium, and in 1904 the CBS fungal collection (now hosted by Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute).