Specialized Microbial Resource Centers: A Driving Force of the Growing Bioeconomy

Abstract

The growth of the world economy is accompanied by a decrease in the quality of the environment. The unsustainable resource use, hence the depletion of the resource base, and as a consequence the catastrophic biodiversity loss and the climatic change are indeed alarming signs of our time. It becomes obvious not only for professionals that the way out of the challenging ecological situation is to reduce the unfavorable impacts of economy through development and implementation of advanced technologies, primarily biotechnologies. The advancement of biotechnology largely depends on the state of biological collections. For many years, the authors have been studying the biodiversity of microorganisms with regard to environmental stresses and disturbances and are well acquainted with the collection activities. In this review we attempt to emphasize the pivotal role of specialized microbial resource centers in the period of building the knowledge-based bioeconomy. The advantages of their integration into international networks are shown. The biotechnology significant collections supported in Russia are presented. The problems of the collection evolution and human resources are discussed.