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| History of the ARS Culture
Collection |
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The origin of the collection can be traced to 1904 when Dr. Charles Thom joined the
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dr. Thom was assigned to investigate the microbiology of
Roquefort and Camembert cheeses while working at the Connecticut Experiment Station and
during the course of this research, he acquired several hundred mold cultures. When Dr.
Thom relocated to Washington, D.C. in 1913, these strains went with him and, over the
years, additional cultures were accessioned from both the U.S. and abroad. This
collection, later known as the Thom and Church Collection in recognition of the
contributions of Dr. Margaret B. Church, Dr. Thom's associate, was to serve as a source of
strains not only for the ARS Culture Collection but also for the American Type Culture
Collection (ATCC).
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When
the Northern Regional Research Laboratory (now the
National Center For Agricultural Utilization Research)
opened in 1940, the collection was formally established.
Dr. Kenneth B. Raper (above, on the left) who had
worked with Dr. Thom (above, on the right) was chosen
to head the Culture Collection Section, a part of
the Fermentation Division, and brought about two thousand
of the Thom and Church cultures with him to Peoria.
Other strains deposited in the NRRL collection during
the same time were citric acid-producing aspergilli
and a collection of bacterial strains. Many of these
cultures had also originated from USDA research in
the Washington area. Dr. L. J. Wickerham (pictured
below), who also joined NRRL in 1940, brought a large
collection of yeasts.
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Since the 1940's, the accessioning of strains has been
guided by overall ARS/USDA needs and the specific research
aims of the curators and other staff members. Cultures
have been obtained from individual scientists within
and outside USDA, from other culture collections, from
NCAUR microbial surveys of commodities and from natural
habitats. Ap proximately a third of the yeast collection
was isolated by Dr Wickerham from samples of natural
materials, frequently obtained while he was on vacation.
Another source of strains has been the accessioning
of whole collections that would otherwise have been
lost to science because of retirement or changes in
research programs of curators. These have included the
Blakeslee collection of Mucorales, A. J. Mix's Taphrina
isolates, the US Army Quartermaster (QM) Collection
of filamentous fungi curated by Emory Simmons, the N.
R. Smith Collection of aerobic spore-forming bacteria,
the L. T. Leonard Collection of rhizobia, the International
Streptomyces Project (ISP) collection from
E. Shirling and the Waksman Collection of Actinomycetales. |
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