"At present, the total data resource access from the China National Microbial Data Center (NMDC) has exceeded 300 TB, the number of data records has exceeded 4 billion." Dr. MA Juncai, director of the World Data Center for Microorganisms (WDCM) and the director of China National Microbial Data Center (NMDC), when accepted the interview of reporter from the Science and Technology Daily said that the data of the center fully covers the microbial resources, microbiomics, microbial technology, and microbial literatures, patents, experts, achievements.

In June of 2019, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance jointly released a name list of the platform fors sharing and service of Chinese scientific resources, NMDC became one of the 20 firstly-initiated national scientific data centers. At present, the center has established a complete data quality control system and data resource sharing standard, and is leading to apply for and developing the first international ISO standard in microbial data, and has developed a data management platform owning the independent intellectual property rights, which has been used in a hundred units at home and abroad.

Establishing national data platform and promoting data sharing

In 2010, WDCM was finally settled at Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMCAS) after a global competition. Over the nine years, 787 culture collection centers from 77 counties in the world have registered in the WDCM, and the center also accepted data exchange and global sharing of 127 culture collection centers from 48 counties, gradually developing into the most important data platform in the microbial resource centers.

"Microbial resources are of strategic importance in China, and the microbial data is the key for microbial resource sharing and development." MA said the national center will help the scientific data sharing and application in the field of microbiology.

"According to the requirements of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance, the center will improve the efficient utilization of microbial resources and support technology innovation so as to provide high-quality resource sharing service." added by MA.

Setting up the first-class center

"We have established and maintained a series of important database related to microbial resources, including Culture Collections Information Worldwide (CCINFO), Global Catalogue of Microorganisms (GCM), WDCM Reference Strain Catalogue, and Analyzer of Bio-resource citations (ABC)." MA Juncai gave the example, it helps the Chinese scientists to organize and coordinate the relevant resources of various countries with the global perspectives, to build the global cooperation framework.

More than that, NMDC has initiated an international project the global catalogue of microorganisms 10K type strain sequencing project. At present, there are 25 culture collections from 16 countries, which have participated in this international cooperation plan and provided with DNA or stain resources. It made the sharing of global data resource develop into the cooperation of international microbial resources; at the same time, the DNA barcode database established by NMDC has applied in multiple ports in Ningbo and other cities in China, which has effectively supported rapid identification of harmful strains and protected the Chinese biosafety.

"Our objective is to establish the global microbial database, make the first-class scientific research supporting center and the top information service center and the leading-edge data research center." MA said.