Microbial Preservation: Freeze Drying & Cryopreservation.
NCIMB offers a convenient freeze drying (lyophilisation) and cryopreservation service that can help you to maintain and preserve your own stock cultures. Freeze drying and cryopreservation are both popular methods for long term maintenance of bacterial cultures. At NCIMB we have decades of experience of preserving one of the largest reference collections in the UK.

Why freeze dry or cryopreserve your cultures?
Many laboratories maintain their own collection of stock cultures for production, research or QC uses, but repeated subculturing can leave these cultures vulnerable to contamination and genetic drift. It is good practice to preserve strains that you work with for long term storage. This can help to reduce the number of passages and the subsequent risk of strain drift.
We can freeze dry or cryopreserve your cultures and return them to you ready for long term storage.
Why use NCIMB?
Additional services
Do you really know the strains you are working with? Use our whole genome microbial sequencing services to get to know the strains you work with inside out. Sequences can be used to periodically check for genetic drift in working stocks. We can also screen sequences for properties such as antimicrobial resistance or virulence factors.
We also offer a storage service to provide an offsite back-up to protect again equipment failure or other disasters.
What you can send for freeze-drying or cryopreservation
Our freeze drying and cryopreservation service is for small batches, to help laboratories store and maintain their own stocks.
We can accept ACDP category 1 and 2 strains for freeze drying. NCIMB does not accept active cultures of dangerous human pathogens or organisms isolated from clinical or diseased plant materials for identification. We cannot accept strains known to be above ACDP category 2 and ACGM class 1.
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NCIMB offers a range of services to help you manage the microorganisms you work with. To find out more about our storage, identification or microbial sequencing services, please contact us.

Patent Deposit Service
NCIMB is an International Depositary Authority under the Budapest Treaty .

Biological Material Storage
Protect your valuable biological material with an off-site back-up.