Korean Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs announces establishment of Marine and Extreme Biosource Collection and Marine Biotechnology Research Center

Posted On: August 16, 2010

The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs announced that it established Marine and Extreme Biosource Collection and Marine Biotechnology Research Center provide information to domestic and foreign researchers.

The organizations were established by one of the Studies on Molecular Genomics of Marine and Extreme Organisms launched by the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute in 2004 and have information on marine and extreme organisms found in Pacific hydrothermal vents and cold seep communities, and Artic and subtropical areas.

The Marine and Extreme Biosource Collection (MEBiC) (www.megrc.re.kr/mebic) preserves and manages 5 divisions, 9 classes, 24 orders, 72 families and 233 genera of domestic and foreign marine microorganisms, and among them, NA1, is now being utilized to develop bio-hydrogen production technology, which will bring enormous economic benefits if successful.

Furthermore, the Marine Biotechnology Research Center (http://mbrc.kordi.re.kr/gbank), was established to integrate and manage genomic information on marine organisms of the Collection and provide genomic information on 417 marine organisms, about 10% of gene decoding research.

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