İstanbul University, İstanbul Faculty of Medicine Microorganisms and Culture Research and Practice Center Directorate (KÜKENS) online catalogue of microorganisms was published for the first time within the “Global Catalogue of Microorganisms”, prepared by the World Culture Collection Federation (WFCC).

İstanbul Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medical Microbiology, Bacteriology Department Head and KÜKENS Director Prof. Dr. Zerrin Aktaş stated that microbial culture collection centers are seen as a key element both in developed and developing countries. Prof. Aktaş said: ‘’ Because of this, many countries and institutions are establishing micro-organism culture collections to provide services to their countries and regions and to support their own research programmes. On the other hand, the awareness of the value of microorganism culture collections have increased for these reasons: The preservation of genetic resources and biodiversity, and the acquisition of projects and basic pillars of the emerging biotech industry.’’

‘’KÜKENS Is A WFCC Member’’

Prof. Dr. Aktaş said that countries started to create better organized and reliable culture collections and they also started to increase the number of culture collection centers. Prof. Aktaş added that 77 countries and 789 culture centers were registered in the World Culture Collection Federation database (The World Culture Collection Federation: WDCM). Professor Aktaş continued her speech as follows: KÜKENS, located in İstanbul University Medical Faculty, is one of the members of this federation. There are 789 research centers registered to this federation and only 132 centers’ online catalogues are published on the web page of ‘’WFCC Global Catalogue of Microorganisms. İstanbul Medical Faculty KÜKENS Research and Practice Center’s microorganism online catalogue (with 906 bacteria ,140 fungi) was published on this website and presented to the researchers worldwide.’’

What Does KÜKENS Do?

Prof. Dr. Aktaş gave some information about KÜKENS as well: “KÜKENS Culture Collections Research Center have the bacteria isolated from Turkey and the various microorganisms brought from different culture centers around the World. There are about 906 bacteria and 140 yeast organisms, in terms of culture.”

Prof. Aktaş added that, the collection with epidemiological clinical importance for Turkey, consists of standard and reference bacteria stems and microorganisms used for training purposes and researches and to produce various biological agents. KÜKENS, which was founded in 1979, has been doing the following studies: Conserving standard microorganism cultures, providing culture demands for the researchers in our country, exploring and making diagnosis for the newly isolated species, saving the deposit cultures, researching food locations for the microorganism isolation and diagnosis, and following the developments in Europe and the other countries in the world, and various studies like these.

Prof. Dr. Aktaş stated that the web page will be completed soon, and they will rapidly continue to meet the demands with some standard forms, electronically. Prof. Dr. Aktaş said, “Besides these, the project works at the molecular level continue in our Research and Practice Center. Additionally, resistant microorganisms will be included in the collections.”

Prof. Dr. Aktaş concluded her speech with this explanation: Microorganisms serotyping and genotyping studies are ongoing. On the other hand, resource, and participation studies for the development of vaccine studies suitable for our country and region continue.

"Global Catalogue of Microorganisms Database" can be accessed by clicking here.

News: Hande Nur OCAK
Translated by: Yasemin UĞURLU
Photographs: Ayşe AKKUŞ
İÜ Corporate Communications Department