The UK National Collection of Type Cultures (NCTC) supplies reference bacterial cultures of medical, scientific and veterinary importance to support academic, health, food and veterinary institutions
The National Collection of Type Cultures (NCTC), which is certified to BS EN ISO 9002, comprises over 5000 bacterial cultures, together with over 100 mycoplasmas and more than 500 plasmids, host strains, bacteriophages and transposons.
Situated at the UK Health Protection Agency's Colindale site (formerly Central Public Health Laboratory), NCTC has ready access to the wide-ranging expertise of an internationally-renowned body of specialists in clinical and environmental microbiology.
These experts check each new batch produced by NCTC, ensuring quality control second to none.
While the collection is maintained and supplied in traditional glass ampoules, some cultures are available as more user-friendly Lenticule discs, in both qualitative and quantitative formats.
In addition to the supply of bacterial cultures, NCTC also provides a range of associated services, which include freeze-drying of customers' own strains, International Depository Authority (IDA) patent depository for bacterial cultures, production of cultures and samples for use in EQA schemes, provision of cultures (in Lenticule disc format), and provision of an identification service, employing conventional biochemical tests, cellular fatty acid analysis (Midi system) and 16S ribosomal DNA sequencing; identification database based on Maldi/Tof in advanced stages of development.
