Core Facility “UNIQEM Collection” | Federal Research Centre "Fundamentals of Biotechnology"

The Core Facility “Collection of Unique and Extremophilic Microorganisms” (UNIQEM Collection) was founded as a structural division of Research Center of Biotechnology, Russian Academy of Science. General Provisions and Regulations for the UNIQEM Collection Core Facility were approved in 2017. Originally, the UNIQEM Collection was created in Institute of Microbiology, USSR Academy of Science, renamed as Institute of Microbiology, Russian Academy of Science in 1992 and Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, Russian Academy of Science in 2004.

Many microorganisms (including the representatives of new genera, families and phyla) in UNIQEM Collection were isolated from different environments, studied, and described validly by scientists from Institute of Microbiology in the course of long-standing research. The UNIQEM Collection also comprises bacteria and archaea which have the uncertain and yet-to-be defined taxonomic position and are difficult for culturing and not duplicated in other collections.

Both UNIQEM Collection Core Facility and laboratories in Research Center of Biotechnology, which are engaged in the maintenance and storage of particular microorganisms, have modern methods and equipment to carry out scientific activities and offer services to study microbial diversity. Different methods are used to cultivate bacteria and archaea, to maintain them in viable state, and to store under different regimes, including cryopreservation. Molecular diagnostics and genomics of new strains are carried out in Core Facility “Bioengineering” of Research Center of Biotechnology.

In addition to the major mission (that is storage and offer of microorganisms), the UNIQEM Collection Core Facility assists in scientific research and conducts its own investigations related to:

diversity, metabolism, and biogeochemical activity of microorganisms isolated from different habitats;
physiology and taxonomy of new taxa of prokaryotes;
approaches to maintain efficiently prokaryotes (including extremophiles) with biotechnological potential, such as producers of stable enzymes and various bioactive substances, or microorganisms used or promising for biohydrometallurgy, enhanced oil recovery, waste processing, wastewater treatment and other tasks;
long-term survival and dormancy of microorganisms;
optimization of methods to store microorganisms and to reactivate them from a dormant state;
high-resolution microscopy of cells (including morphology of new strains), supramolecular structures, and nanoparticles with elemental analysis.