A sustainable future with microbes at its core

Celebrating International Microorganism Day Blog post by Connor Trotter, EASTBIO DTP PIPS intern I’ve just started a 3-month placement at NCIMB Ltd – home to the UK’s National Collection of Industrial, Food and Marine Bacteria. With such an amazing microbial resource at my fingertips, to celebrate International Microorganism Day, I decided to delve into the culture collection, pick out a few interesting strains, and highlight some of the important applications that microorganisms have. Microorganisms are Earth’s smallest, and most ancient lifeforms. Found across all major domains of the modern Tree …

Harnessing NCIMB’s microbial collection – applications for personal care

Dr Jude Huggan, Business Development Manager, NCIMB As society transitions away from fossil fuels, it’s not only our energy sources that need to be replaced with sustainable alternatives – we also need to find alternatives to a host of fossil-fuel derived ingredients found in products that most people use every day. The personal care sector has an advantage over some other chemical-using industries in this transition. Positive perception and reputation are essential to the commercial success of personal care products, and consumers are increasingly demanding products that align with their …

Novel Pseudomonas species added to NCIMB catalogue

A novel species of Pseudomonas has recently been added to the National Collection of Industrial, Food and Marine Bacteria by scientists at Texas A&M AgriLife. The strain, NCIMB 15426 Pseudomonas uvaldensis sp. nov., which is now available to order from NCIMB, was isolated from an onion bulb and is noted to cause onion bulb rot.  For more information see the strain entry in our catalogue and a paper describing the strain which was published earlier this year. Khanal M, Timilsina S, Bhatta BP, Bophela K, Coutinho T, Cochran K, Malla …

Download the A-Z of NCIMB to learn more about the diversity in our collection

The name of our culture collection – the National Collection of Industrial, Food and Marine Bacteria -comes from three collections that were merged to form it. Since then the collection has continued to grow and develop, and today, our name reflects our history rather than the content of the collection today. However, people are often still surprised at the diversity of strains held at NCIMB, and might not think to search our catalogue for eg freshwater or soil strains. We love reading about all the amazing places that the strains …

Two novel actinomycete species added to the National Collection of Industrial, Food and Marine Bacteria

Two novel actinomycete species1, isolated from Southern Ocean sediment, have been added to the NCIMB culture collection by researchers from the University of Strathclyde. The microbiology of Polar environments, which are vulnerable to global climate change, is vastly underexplored in terms of biomedical potential.  Furthermore, actinomycetes are well known for their specialised metabolite production, accounting for over 45% of all bioactive microbial metabolites. We are delighted to add Pseudonocardia abyssalis sp. nov. NCIMB 15270 and Pseudonocardia oceani sp. nov. NCIMB 15269. to our collection as they have been found to exhibit both …

Celebrating International Microorganism Day 2021

Dr Samantha Law considers the important role of culture collections around the world on International Microorganism Day 17 September is International Microorganisms Day, because on this day in 1683, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek wrote to the Royal Society about his teeth being the home to “many very little animalcules”. The understanding of these ‘animacules’ and their importance to every aspect of our lives has come a long way since then.  Culture collections around the world have played a pivotal role in supporting microbiological research, collaborating, and working together to ensure that …