United Kingdom Federation for Culture Collections, Issue 21 (1993)

United Kingdom Federation For Culture Collections Newsletter Issue 21 1993 Code: NL93004 Size of Files: Text: 25K Graphics: No graphics files CONTENTS: Guest Editorial, Brian Sutton, IMI ICCC-VII Resolutions Emerging Technologies - Pyrolysis Spectrometry (PyMS) in Clinical Microbiology - a net gain! - R Freeman, R Goodacre The Biodiversity Convention - Barbara Kirsop MINE up-date UKFCC Meetings Future meetings of interest News from the collections NCIMB Publications of Interest UKFCC Committee Members UK Service Culture Collections UKFCC Sustaining Members ---------------------------------------------------- Guest Editorial The organizers of the recent ICCC-VII in Beijing had the perspicacity to juxtapose 'Culture Collections' with the current buzzword 'Biodiversity'. In so doing they contrived and indeed ensured that the theme was prominent in participants' minds from the opening ceremony, through the varied business of the Congress, to the closing session. ICCC-VII Resolutions At the Seventh International Congress on Culture Collections held in Beijing, China, 11-16 October 1992, delegates noted with great concern that the Convention on Biological Diversity signed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992, failed to fully appreciate the fundamental importance of microorganisms to the maintenance and functioning of global ecosystems... Pyrolysis Mass Spectrometry (PyMS) in Clinical Microbiology - A Net Gain! The idea of using the characteristic spectral data resulting from controlled pyrolysis of microorganisms as the basis of a 'fingerprinting' system for medical microbiological epidemiological purposes has been accepted since the 1980s. The advent of a (relatively) low-cost, semi-automated Curie point pyrolysis mass spectrometer (eg the PYMS 200X machine made by Horizon Instruments Ltd, Heathfield, E Sussex) has made the technique reproducible, much more accessible and 'microbiologist- friendly'..