China General Microbiological Culture Collection Center (CGMCC) is a non-profit organization financed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is the earliest microbial resource collection and sharing center in China. Its predecessor can be traced back to the Fermentation and Bacteriology Laboratory of the Yellow Sea Chemical Research Society in 1931. CGMCC was founded in 1979 as the central culture collection in the cooperative network of various collections in China. It has started to carry out its tasks as a depository organization of China designated by Patent Bureau of China since 1985 and as an International Depository Authority (IDA) under the regulations of the Budapest Treaty since 1995. CGMCC has participated in the Project of National Infrastructure of Science and Technology supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China as the core facility for General Microbes.

As a national public welfare center dedicated to microbial resource preservation, China General Microbiological Culture Collection Center (CGMCC) is committed to the protection, sharing, and sustainable utilization of microbial resources. Centering on major national needs such as life science research, biotechnology innovation, and industrial development in China, it explores, discovers, and collects microbial resources both domestically and internationally, while conducting proper long-term preservation and management of these resources. On the premise of ensuring biosafety and protecting intellectual property rights, CGMCC provides microbial species resources, genetic resources, information resources, and professional technical services for industrial and agricultural production, public health, environmental protection, scientific research, and education.

CGMCC’s core work primarily includes the following aspects: isolating, collecting, preserving, exchanging, and supplying various types of microbial strains; preserving diverse culturable biological materials used in patent procedures; conducting research on microbial strain preservation technologies; carrying out studies on microbial isolation and cultivation techniques; and researching microbial identification and verification technologies. Currently, CGMCC maintains over 15,500 microbial species (encompassing more than 115,000 strains), over 35,000 strains of culturable biological materials for patent-related purposes, and a microbial metagenomic library containing more than 750,000 clones.

https://www.cgmcc.net/english/