Biological resources information infrastructure

Biotechnology is an innovative form of technology expected to contribute to resolving various problems that human beings are now facing, a cross-sectional technological form spreading to wide-ranging industrial sectors, and a strategic sector to be explored for new industrial applications from the viewpoint of international competitiveness. In order to contribute to the development of biotechnology, structural analyses of DNA, functional analyses of proteins, and the collection, storage and classification of industrially useful microbes are to be conducted, and the results are to be compiled and provided as part of a biological resource information infrastructure.

The Biological Resource Center (BRC) was established in the National Institute of Technology and Evaluation as the core organization concerning collection of microbial genetic resources in Japan. It aims to attain the goal to store the greatest number of microbial genetic resources in the world by 2010.

In order not only to collect microbes in Japan but also to obtain useful microbes from foreign countries where free collection of genetic resources is restricted by the biodiversity treaty, the BRC has held negotiations with the governments of countries which have such resources, signed memorandums on profit-sharing, and worked on to collect new kinds of microbial genetic resources through joint research, etc.

◇Collection and utilization of biological genetic resources

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