Culture clubs need 'sustained funding.' (microbial culture collection)

American microbiologists fear valuable culture collections are corroding as support languishes. Jeffrey Fox considers their complaints.

Microbial culture collections in the US are facing challenges that threaten their survival even though they are recognised as vital to basic research and to several industries.

These stores of microorganisms, mammalian and plant cells, and other elements face restricted funding, a shortage of trained personnel and rapid changes in technology which make maintenance more expensive.

Despite the value of these living archives, microbiologists are finding it difficult to muster support for preserving them. They complain that few appreciate the role of such collections and their plight has little immediate appeal to elected officials or the public.

The National Academy of Sciences held a meeting last month in Washington, DC to review the situation. 'The future of collections is not yet in a state of crisis, but we share a concern,' says Anne Vidaver of the University of Nebraska, who chaired the session. Perhaps more than anything, they need a source of 'sustained funding', she says.

Vidaver points to Japan, Germany, Brazil, and other national governments that are committing substantial sums to build, purchase, and maintain similar collections. Japan, for example, has been purchasing culture libraries from US companies and universities, in a move that is both envied and feared by US scientists in the industrial sector. Within the US, even the usual resources that might be tapped for support are on shaky ground these days.

Although a few biotechnology companies have interceded to rescue special microbial collections from retiring university professors, much of the industry lacks the cash for such gallantry. Meanwhile, the federal agencies, microbiology's historical supporters, are preoccupied with a Congress that is intent on reducing the federal deficit and slashing overall programme budgets.

Alternative approaches for funding include charging higher user fees or levying universal fees on relevant federal research programmes. But neither approach will have much impact if federal research budgets continue to shrink. Moreover, when the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) recently raised some of its prices to offset a drop in federal revenues, orders from researchers dropped off, according to Robert Gherna of the ATCC.

The ATCC, a non-profit corporation that maintains nearly 150,000 cultures at its headquarters near Washington, is one of the two largest collections in the US. The other is supported by the US Department of Agriculture in Peoria, Illinois. Besides these major holdings, there are dozens of smaller sets elsewhere in USDA and in other federal agencies, universities and corporations. For instance, Merck houses 17,665 strains in its library, including microbes used to produce drugs and precursors as well as other strains used to test new antibiotics.

In general, microbial cultures are used widely in the chemical, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, food and bioremediation industries, points out Keith Bostian of Microcyde Pharmaceuticals in Palo Alto, California. 'Annual production accounts for tens of billions of dollars. But it's a serious concern that these collections are corroding from neglect.'

The small and medium-sized compilations at universities, developed typically over decades and often with considerable federal support, are the most at risk. But even the venerable ATCC and the USDA collections are facing budget uncertainties. Indeed, with some powerful members of Congress seeking to eliminate the entire USDA, anxieties over culture collections tend to be overshadowed by a more sweeping question of whether whole programmes will be dismantled.

Meanwhile, at ATCC, 'because 80% of our collection rarely gets distributed, we rely on 20% to pay for the rest,' points out ATCC director Ray Cypess, describing a long-lived business reality. But the biotechnology industry with its close ties to university research has brought ATCC new problems. 'Because everyone now thinks everything is valuable, some researchers are demanding payment for our acquisition of germ plasm,' Cypess says. In the past, researchers freely sent materials to ATCC for safe-keeping.

Moreover, says Cypess' colleague Lois Blaine, data management is becoming an increasingly costly effort for ATCC. This year, for the first time, ATCC began selling its information-loaded catalogue to recover costs. And, although comparable information is made available for free over the Internet, ATCC is thinking of selling its overall data base, she says. In fact, she adds, the organisation could not have gone onto the Internet without support from the US National Institutes of Health.

If everyone moves quickly before the Internet begins charging, however, it may help to address another problem concerning the medium-sized and smaller collections. Because no one knows precisely what holdings are out there, their value, and the dangers they may face, Bostian and other experts recommend developing a full inventory of the collections. One proposal is that researchers compile information on an internationally accessible electronic bulletin board as a first step. Once more is known about these archives, it will become more feasible to determine their value and how to maintain them.

These culture collections face a big philosophical problem: scientists find such work unglamourous compared with basic research. 'In the past, the collections were more directly connected with research, and not just a matter of infrastructure,' says Bostian.

'There are economic opportunities and real scientific questions to address for those who deal with the collections,' Bostian says. But the worry is that the research community will not really appreciate those opportunities until after some of the now-corroding stores have disappeared.