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Biological Resource Centres
UNDERPINNING THE FUTURE OF LIFE SCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

BIOLOGICAL RESOURCE CENTRES

UNDERPINNING THE FUTURE OF LIFE SCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY

ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT

FOREWORD

Biological Resource Centres: Underpinning the Future of Life Sciences and Biotechnology appears 19 years afterthe OECD’s first report on biotechnology (Biotechnology – International Trends and Perspectives, 1982) when experts and policy circles were still wondering whether this new technology was just one new tool in the changing toolkit of the chemicals industry, or whether it had perhaps more far-reaching significance. Biological Resource Centres appears at the beginning of what has been called the“century of the life sciences” and in a radically different intellectual environment. The turn-about in political and public perception began in 1999-2000, triggered by the crisis over genetically modified food in Europe and the sequencing of the human genome. There is now little doubt that the breakthroughs in biotechnology, genomics and genetics will affect our societies and many aspects of our life asprofoundly as information technologies have already done. However, there is still only scanty awareness that biotechnology will lead to many changes in government policy, public information, law, education and the scientific and technological infrastructure. This report alerts policy makers and the public to the fact that the framework conditions of the new technology, its scientific andtechnological infrastructure and its raw materials differ greatly from those that underpinned earlier technologies. Understanding of these differences will be essential if the technology is to develop successfully. How do we move from technologies based on mineral resources (metals, coal, oil, etc.) and on physics, chemistry and engineering to technologies increasingly based on biological resources and,more particularly, on something that is essentially invisible – the living cell and its genes? In 1998, Japan had the foresight to propose that the OECD’s Working Party on Biotechnology should examine support for Biological Resource Centres – BRCs – as a key component of the scientific and technological infrastructure of the life sciences and biotechnology. This effort began with the

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“OECD Workshop Tokyo ’99 on Scientific and Technological Infrastructure – Support for BRCs”, which was held in Tokyo on 17-18 February 1999. This report is the result of two years of work by a Task Force on Biological Resource Centres. While at the outset, opinions of representatives of different countries and disciplines varied widely, they ultimately converged on allsubstantive issues. Thanks are due to all participants (see Annex 3), but particularly to the Task Force chairs and consultants who represent a wide spectrum of international competence. They include the chair: Prof. Hideaki Sugawara, Director of WFCC-MIRCEN World Data Centre for Microorganisms and Head of the Database Management and Development Division of DNA Data Bank of Japan; the vice-chairs:Prof. Ross Coppel, Head of the Department of Microbiology, Monash University, Australia; Prof. Jay Grimes, Dean of Marine Sciences, University of Southern Mississippi, United States; and Prof. Erko Stackebrandt, Director of the German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, Braunschweig. Key contributors are: Prof. Ron Atlas, Dean of Graduate Studies, University of Louisville and PresidentElect of the American Society of Microbiology who developed the architecture of the report; Prof. Mark Bailey, Institute of Virology and Environmental Microbiology, Oxford; Dr. Alan Doyle, Biological Collections Programme Manager, Wellcome Trust, London; Prof. Toru Okuda, Tamagawa University, Tokyo; Mr. Louis Réchaussat, Director of the Information System Department of the National Institute of...