Country Report from Korea

Country Report from Korea: Current Status and Future Plan of KCTC/BRC Jung-Sook Lee* Korean Collection for Type Cultures (KCTC), Biological Resource Center (BRC), Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), 111 Gwahangno, Yusong-gu, Daejeon 305-806, Korea ABSTRACT The largest and oldest culture collection in Korea, Korean Collection for Type Cultures (KCTC) has three functions as follows 1) We carry out the collection and preservation of core biological resources from home and abroad, offering public support by distributing biological resources to academia, industry, and research institutions, and organizing patent strain deposit Especially, we were designated as an International Depositary Authority (IDA) under Budapest Treaty by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Now we can manage about 17 kinds of biological resources including bacteria, yeast, fungi, algae, animal and plant viruses, embryos, animal and plant cell cultures, seeds, RNA and etc We manage about 18,000 biological resources including patent strains Every year over 1,500 strains are newly added to KCTC We also distribute more than 5,000 strains every year to home and abroad 2) We develop the platform technology for the screening, identification and preservation of useful biological resources We publish more than 40 papers concerning biological resources Since 1997, we reported more than 150 new species Last year, KCTC was cited by over 160 papers in PubMed search 3) We are trying to construct on local and international network for biological resources and related information, and support workshops, conferences, and consultation, etc * Corresponding author Tel.: +82-42-860-4677 E-mail: jslee@kribb.re.kr As a national bio-infrastructure for biological resources, we perform the role of a biotechnology think-tank in the field of bio R&D At present, we have many small collections for microorganisms in universities in Korea KCTC plays an important part in networking among the collections in domestic, and participates actively in international network among the collections in the world We concentrate our efforts to increase KCTC to international biological resource center  ... field of bio R&D At present, we have many small collections for microorganisms in universities in Korea KCTC plays an important part in networking among the collections in domestic, and participates