P2269@com.qz.se ("ENG-LEONG FOO ", MIRCEN-STOCKHOLM) (04/18/89)
From: Eng-leong Foo, Director, UNEP/UNESCO/ICRO Microbiological
Resources Center (MIRCEN), Karolinska Inst. 104 01 Stockholm.
Through a series of messages, I would like to inform you about
the Microbiological Resources Center (MIRCEN) Network in Environmental,
Applied Microbiological and Biotechnological Research, its aims
and activities at its member institutes. This effort is also
part of the workplan from a UNESCO contract to facilitate the
electronic exchange of information and scientific results in
anaerobic digestion, culture collections, bioconversion, etc
with MIRCENs and other agencies. Several of MIRCENs have IDs
at the Microbial Strain Data Network (U.K.) and at the World
Data Center for Culture Collections. These databases are taking
steps to develop a communication link with BIOCONVERSION subscribers
and its users; until this is done I will serve as the "human
gateway" for any communications directed to MIRCENS that do not
have a computer network link to BIOCONVERSION.
The MIRCEN program embodies activities that are carried out within
the framework of Unesco's regular program activities in co-operation
with IUMS, ICRO, IOBB, EFCC and other bodies and the UNEP/Unesco
project on the use and preservation of microbial strains for
deployment in environmental management.
A world-wide program for preserving microbial gene pools and
making them accessible to the developing countries has been launched
through the establishment of a world network of Microbiological
Resources Centers (MIRCEN) which are designed to :
* provide the infrastructure for a world network which would
incorporate regional and interregional co-operating laboratories
geared to the management, distribution and utilization of the
microbial gene pool
* reinforce efforts relating to the conservation of microorganisms,
with emphasis on Rhizobium gene pools, in developing countries,
with an agrarian base
* foster the development of new inexpensive technologies native
to the region
* promote the applications of microbiology in order to strength
rural economies, and
* serve as focal centers for training of manpower and diffucion
of microbiological knowledge.
There are currently 19 MIRCENs, many of them in turn have their
own regional network of collaborating laboratories or co-MIRCENs.
Publications:
The MIRCEN network has two publications :
(i) MIRCEN Journal of Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology
(published by Oxford University Press in association with
UNESCO)
(ii) MIRCEN NEWS. (published by UNESCO).
More information on the MIRCEN Network or sample copies of publications
may be available from: Dr. Edgar J DaSilva, Division of Scientific
Research and Higher Education, UNESCO, Place de Fontenoy, 75700
Paris, France.