The Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute performs highly innovative mycological research that contributes to the discovery and understanding of fungi and its biodiversity and potential solutions to societal challenges. The Westerdijk Institute has an encompassing and high quality collection of living fungi and related meta data that is highly utilized by public and private parties.
The main focus of the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute is and will continue to be to explore, study and preserve our fungal collection. We recognize the enormous potential of fungi in the application of solving the world’s biggest challenges. We therefore enhance our partnering with the scientific community, both in the academic, medical, agricultural and industrial field for fundamental and applied research. We also built a new wing to our institute, dedicated to novel product discovery.
The Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute is part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and is situated in Utrecht. We maintain a world-renowned microbial biologicial resource centre of living filamentous fungi, yeasts and bacteria. The institute's research programs principally focus on the taxonomy and evolution of fungi as well as on functional aspects of fungal biology and ecology, increasingly making use of molecular and genomics approaches. The institute employs circa 70 personnel, among whom 20 scientists.
In our microbial biological resource centre (brc) we now maintain over 100.000 strains of micro-organisms, representing a large percentage of the species in the fungal kingdom that have been cultured to date. In diversity of species it is unchallenged as a reference centre for mycological research. The task to preserve the organisms while maintaining their original characters is a perpetuating challenge to technicians and scientists alike. Because the increase in the number of organism acquisitions is not proportional to an increase in assistance, preservation on agar has been minimized, thus placing high demands upon long-term preservation. The value of a brc depends not only on the quality of the strains, but equally on the amount and accuracy of the data attached to them. Although there are considerable differences among the various taxonomic groups, efforts are taken to increase the amount of information. The available databases allow random information retrieval and give not only access to strain data, but also to literature while links to on-line information present elsewhere are provided.
Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute is a centre of expertise, advising on mycological problems of a scientific, health-related or industrial nature. It offers various services including identifications, patent deposits and courses. Research projects for third parties can be carried out on a strictly confidential base. The institute also publishes books and the journals Studies in Mycology, CBS Biodiversity Series and Persoonia.
