History of the Culture Collection of Yeasts

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Last Updated on Thursday, 14 March 2013 08:25

History of the Culture Collection of Yeasts

A.Kocková-Kratochvílová

The Culture Collection of Yeasts (former Czechoslovak Collection of Yeasts) was founded by Dr. Anna Kocková-Kratochvílová at the Research Institute of Brewing and Malting in Prague, Czech Republic, in 1946. At first the Collection started with strains originated from the Laboratory of Vitamin and Hormone Chemistry in Prague and these strains are still maintained in the CCY and form the oldest part of the collection.

Subsequently, the Collection was enriched with strains from CBS (the Netherlands), Carlsberg laboratory (Denmark) and various Central European breweries. The activity of the Institute was terminated in 1953 and Dr. Kocková-Kratochvílová moved the Collection to the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Slovak Technical University, Bratislava, Slovakia. The Collection was relocated to the West-Slovakian Brewery in 1959 and later, in 1963, to the new building of the Institute of Chemistry Slovak Academy of Sciences, where the Collection has been located until now.

Through these years, the CCY was enriched with yeasts from the Yeast Collection of the Research Institute of Distilleries and Canning Industry, monosporic cultures and hybrids, clinical isolates, wine yeasts, and strains isolated from the numerous natural samples collected in various area of Czechoslovakia. Read more about Dr. Anna Kocková-Kratochvílová.

Changes in the Collection

Elena Sláviková

Dr. Kocková-Kratochvílová retired in 1986 and Dr. Elena Sláviková, her close colleague and former PhD. student, became the head of the Collection. Dr. Sláviková continued with the isolation, identification, and characterization of yeasts associated with natural sources. Furthermore, strains isolated from fresh-water lakes, ponds, and the rivers Danube and Morava were inserted into the Collection, as were yeasts associated with forest, grass-grown, and agricultural soils, and the leaves from the both forest and fruit trees. Dr. Sláviková retired in July 2012.

In 1992, when Slovakia and the Czech Republic separated, the name of the CCY was changed from the Czechoslovak Collection of Yeasts to the Culture Collection of Yeasts.

Membership history

The Collection has had close relations with various culture collections from the beginning of its existence. In 1947, it became a member of the International Centre of Pure Cultures of Microorganisms in Lausanne, Switzerland. From 1972 the CCY has been listed in the „World Directory of Collections of Cultures of Microorganisms“; It has the number 333.

The CCY became a member of the European Culture Collections’ Organization in 1982. It acquired the status of International Depository Authority, established under the Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit Microorganisms for the purpose of patent procedure, in 1992.