The Leibniz Institute DSMZ - German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures GmbH (German: ''Leibniz-Institut DSMZ-Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH''), located in

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( ; from Low German , local dialect: ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...

, is a research infrastructure in the

Leibniz Association The Leibniz Association (German: ''Leibniz-Gemeinschaft'' or ''Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz'') is a union of German non-university research institutes from various disciplines. Funding and Structure As of 2020, 96 non-u ...

. Originally a culture collection for microbes (DSM), the DSMZ has expanded to provide

cell culture Cell culture or tissue culture is the process by which cell (biology), cells are grown under controlled conditions, generally outside of their natural environment. After cells of interest have been Cell isolation, isolated from living tissue, ...

s, online

bioinformatic Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divi ...

services, and offline analysis services. It also hosts research projects. As of 2021, DSMZ is the world's most diverse collection of bioresources with 75,000 different accessions. These include

microorganisms A microorganism, or microbe, is an organism of microscopic size, which may exist in its single-celled form or as a colony of cells. The possible existence of unseen microbial life was suspected from antiquity, with an early attestation in ...

(including more than 32,000

bacterial Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among the ...

strains, 690

archaeal Archaea ( ) is a domain of organisms. Traditionally, Archaea only included its prokaryotic members, but this has since been found to be paraphyletic, as eukaryotes are known to have evolved from archaea. Even though the domain Archaea cladis ...

strains, 7,000 strains of

yeasts Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constitu ...

and

fungi A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...

) as well as more than 840 human and animal

cell cultures Cell culture or tissue culture is the process by which cells are grown under controlled conditions, generally outside of their natural environment. After cells of interest have been isolated from living tissue, they can subsequently be main ...

, over 1,500 plant viruses, over 940

bacteriophages A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a phage (), is a virus that infects and replicates within bacteria. The term is derived . Bacteriophages are composed of proteins that encapsulate a DNA or RNA genome, and may have structures tha ...

, and 250

plasmids A plasmid is a small, extrachromosomal DNA molecule within a cell that is physically separated from chromosomal DNA and can replicate independently. They are most commonly found as small circular, double-stranded DNA molecules in bacteria and ...

(status 2021). Since 2010, the scientific director of the Leibniz Institute DSMZ has been Jörg Overmann, a microbiologist with a PhD from the University of Konstanz. He holds a professorship in

microbiology Microbiology () is the branches of science, scientific study of microorganisms, those being of unicellular organism, unicellular (single-celled), multicellular organism, multicellular (consisting of complex cells), or non-cellular life, acellula ...

at the

Technical University of Braunschweig TU Braunschweig (, unofficially ''University of Braunschweig – Institute of Technology'') is the oldest ' (comparable to an institute of technology in the American system) in Germany. It was founded in 1745 as Collegium Carolinum and is a membe ...

. Since August 2018, he has led the institute with leadership with Bettina Fischer as administrative director.

History

Structure

Nearly 200 scientists and technical staff currently work at the DSMZ. It is a company/non-profit organization recognized as a public benefit. In 2018, the Leibniz Institute DSMZ was recognized as the world's first registered collection under

Directive (European Union) A directive is a legal act of the European Union that requires Member state of the European Union, member states to achieve particular goals without dictating how the member states achieve those goals. A directive's goals have to be made the go ...

511/2014, providing all users with the necessary legal certainty in the handling of their bioresources in accordance with the

Nagoya Protocol The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity, also known as the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS), is ...

. The DSMZ is a partner in international organizations such as the

European Culture Collections' Organisation The European Culture Collections' Organisation (ECCO) is a European non-profit organisation which promotes the collaboration and exchange of ideas and information on all aspects of culture collection activity. Corporate members of ECCO are microbia ...

(ECCO), the

World Federation for Culture Collections The World Federation for Culture Collections is an international body formed under the umbrella of the International Union of Biological Sciences and a Federation within the International Union of Microbiological Societies. The WFCC operates as ...

(WFCC) and the

Global Biodiversity Information Facility The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around th ...

(GBIF).

Functions

DSMZ is a global service provider with more than 10,000 customers in over 80 countries and provides microorganisms and cell cultures for university, non-university and industrial research in the

life sciences This list of life sciences comprises the branches of science that involve the scientific study of life – such as microorganisms, plants, and animals including human beings. This science is one of the two major branches of natural science, ...

. It also serves as a patent and security depository for biological material (a total of over 11,700 bioresources) in accordance with the guidelines of the

Budapest Treaty The Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure, or Budapest Treaty, is an international treaty signed in Budapest, Hungary, on April 28, 1977. It entered into force on A ...

. It is the only patent depository for bioresources in Germany. The DSMZ only holds bioresources in biosafety level 1 and 2.

Web services

In 2010, DSMZ established the GGDC (Genome-to-Genome Distance Calculator) webserver, which produces a value analogous to DNA-DNA hybridization using GBDP (Genome Blast Distance Phylogeny) algorithm. It can compare whole genomes as well as single genes. GGDC 2 was published in 2013. GGDC 3 was published in 2021. In 2012, the freely accessible

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

BacDive (The Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase) was established, which is maintained and curated by the DSMZ. The database contains information on a wide variety of strains of

prokaryotes A prokaryote (; less commonly spelled procaryote) is a single-celled organism whose cell lacks a nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles. The word ''prokaryote'' comes from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'before', and (), meaning 'nut' ...

; in 2016, information on 53,978 strains could be found there, and by 2021, the number had increased to more than 82,000. For the cell lines provided by DSMZ, there is an analogous "DSMZCellDive" service. In 2017, DSMZ established VICTOR, which classifies viral genomes according to GGDC distances compared to genomes in a reference ICTV classification database. In 2021, DSMZ established TYGS (Type Strain Genome Server), which allows an uploaded bacterial genome to be classified according to its dDDH value relative to

type strain The International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes (ICNP) or Prokaryotic Code, formerly the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (ICNB) or Bacteriological Code (BC), governs the scientific names for Bacteria and Archaea.P. H. A. Sneath ...

genomes in the server's database. A new version of the

List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclature List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclature (LPSN) is an online database that maintains information on the naming and taxonomy of prokaryotes, following the taxonomy requirements and rulings of the International Code of Nomenclatu ...

(LPSN) was established at DSMZ in 2020. LPSN received close integration with TYGS in 2021.

Departments

In addition to the research departments ''Microbial Ecology and Diversity Research'' and ''Microbial Genome Research'', the eight departments of the DSMZ include the collection departments ''Microorganisms'', ''Bioresources for Bioeconomy and Health Research'', ''Human and Animal Cell Lines'' and ''Plant Viruses'' as well as the departments ''Analytics'' and ''Bioinformatics and Databases''. The establishment of independent junior research groups (as of 2021: ''VirusInteract'' (interactions of plant viruses with their hosts) and ''Microbial Biotechnology'') provides qualification opportunities for young scientists conducting research on selected, current topics.

References

{{Leibniz Association Leibniz Association Organisations based in Braunschweig Medical research institutes in Germany Microbiology organizations Culture collections Medical and health organisations based in Lower Saxony Organizations established in 1969 Research institutes in Lower Saxony