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A database of the UK's scientific collections of more than 70,000 microbes and cells can now be accessed online at

The United Kingdom National Culture Collection comprises ten separate collections that range from wood-rotting fungi and food bacteria to mammalian cells and marine algae. Established by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the UKNCC, which went online last week, follows a government-sponsored report that concluded that coordination within a single body was the most effective way of maintaining and using the resources stored in each collection.