News

20 November Fiocruz makes protozoa collections discoverable

We are happy to announce that Fiocruz has made their protozoa collection discoverable on GGBN adding 12 genera and 33 species of protists.

30 October 2020 GGBN Data Portal User Survey: Please participate by December 1

GGBN is redesigning and upgrading the search functionality and display of the GGBN Data Portal, which was designed to serve as a single-stop search platform for researchers to locate genomic samples from biodiversity biobanks around the world.

We are asking for input from those that conduct non-human molecular research, to ensure that the redesign meets your needs. Please fill out and share this survey by December 1.

6 October 2020 INVEMAR joins GGBN

We are happy to announce that the Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras Jose Benito Vives de Andreis INVEMAR has joined GGBN as our latest member from Colombia. INVEMAR's collections include tissue samples of vertebrates and marine invertebrates.

6 October 2020 TDWG 2020 Genomic Biodiversity Interest Group Session now available

The TDWG 2020 session on environmental samples and associated standards is now available on YouTube. This working group session took place during the joint TDWG and Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) Biodiversity Genomics Working Group (aka GBWG). See TDWG 2020: Genomic Biodiversity Interest Group - Working Session.

21 July 2020 BioCASe Provider Software "Hands On" Webinar now available

The second DarwinCore Hour webinar on BioCASe provider software "Using BioCASe to provide data to GBIF and GGBN - hands on" is now available, along with the first BioCASe webinar "Using BioCASe to provide data to GBIF and GGBN - overview". See GGBN's use cases and tutorials on data management and publishing.

15 June 2020 GGBN-GGI 2020 Award Recipients

We are happy to announce the results of the GGBN-GGI 2020 Awards Program. A total of eight highly competitive proposals representing institutions across seven countries were received and ranked by a peer review committee representative of GGBN membership. The panel ranked the proposals on the following metrics: complementarity to existing collections on GGBN; the size, scope, and quality of the collection; the genomic novelty of the collection; adherence to GGBN best practices; the efficiency or cost-effectiveness of the proposal; contribution to the GGBN community; and the timeline for completion. The total funding requested was nearly 175,000 USD, 107,442 USD was awarded. Awardees will be contributing over 100,000 new genetic samples to the GGBN data portal by September 2021.

GGBN-GGI 2020 Awardees include:

• Marine and Coastal Research Institute, INVEMAR/Colombia
• National Biodiversity Cryobank of Canada, Canadian Museum of Nature/Canada
• Ocean Genome Legacy Center/USA
• Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (BIOWEB, Escuela de Biología)/Ecuador
• Steinhardt Museum of Natural History/Israel

The titles and abstracts of these proposals can be found on the GGBN awards program page, along with general award program information.

Congratulations everyone!

21 April 2020 GGBN-GGI 2020 Awards Proposals Due April 24

Thinking your genetic collections should be more visible for research? Do you require staff or other resources to make this happen? If so, then apply to the GGBN-GGI 2020 awards program. Deadline for proposals is April 24th.

20 April 2020 CryoArks and GGBN Partner on Animal Biobanking

[File:CAlogo.png|left|300px]] CryoArks and GGBN are happy to announce a new partnership on long-term preservation of animal samples and their derivatives. This partnership formalizes a collaborative framework aimed at growing genetic collections and at enhancing the GGBN Document Library and its management with animal biobanking materials for conservation-focused research. CryoArks and GGBN will work together to:

• improve curatorial practices and implement high-quality standards,
• harmonize data sharing policies of animal samples and increase discoverability of these samples for conservation research in accordance with internationally recognized standards and best practices,
• maintain a high compliance with national and international legislation and conventions in the exchange and use of animal material,
• create and implement a joint strategy to be promoted through international fora and organizations involved in biobanking and biopreservation,
• develop joint strategies to increase knowledge of the importance and need of biobanking and biopreservation for current and future research, and
• promote knowledge exchange by development of the GGBN document library on biodiversity biobanking.

GGBN and the six UK-based CryoArks institutions will both compliment and leverage each other’s efforts towards achieving mutual biobanking goals.

30 March 2020 GGBN Annual Newsletter now available

Please visit GGBN's Newsletters page.

23 March 2020 Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research-New Zealand Arthropod Collection makes collections discoverable

We are happy to announce that Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research-New Zealand Arthropod Collection has made 8600 ethanol preserved specimens of New Zealand arthropods (primarily insects) discoverable on GGBN adding 11 new families and 250 new genera to the data portal as part of the 2018 GGBN-GGI Awards Program.

12 March 2020 BioCASe webinar now available on GGBN's YouTube channel

The March 11th DarwinCore Hour webinar on BioCASe is now available through GGBN's YouTube channel. GGBN is planning follow-up webinars on step-by-step installation, mapping and using BioCASe as well as ABCD3.

02 March 2020 Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden makes genetic collections discoverable

We are happy to announce that the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden in Brazil has made more than 6,500 DNA and tissue samples of Brazilian plants discoverable through the GGBN data portal, adding approximately 250 new genera and 1,200 species to GGBN. Statistics for Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden can be found on the GGBN website.

24 February 2020 Darwin Core Hour on BioCASe Provider Software and ABCD: March 11, 2020 (16:00 CET)

On 11 March 2020 (16:00 CET) Jörg Holetschek (Botanic Garden Berlin) will talk about the BioCASe Provider Software and ABCD in the Darwin Core Hour, which is one option for GGBN members to publish data to GGBN. The webinar will be recorded and made available for those who can’t attend the live presentation. More information on this webinar can be found at https://www.idigbio.org/content/darwin-core-hour-biocase-provider-software-and-abcd-universal-approach-biodiversity

21 February 2020 GGBN Conference postponed until March 2021

Due to the coronavirus situation in China and globally, the GGBN Executive Committee has decided to postpone the GGBN 2020 conference in Shenzhen until early March 2021. Specific dates will follow soon. Thank you to everyone for your patience and understanding in this matter. We look forward to a successful conference hosted by the China National GeneBank in 2021.

18 February 2020 Odessa National Medical University joins GGBN

We are happy to announce that the Odessa National Medical University has joined GGBN as its first member in Ukraine. Samples include plant DNAs and associated specimens.

10 February 2020 The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History joins GGBN

We are happy to announce that the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History has joined GGBN as its first member in Israel. SMNH houses thousands of DNA and tissue samples representing over a thousand species of vertebrates and invertebrates.

03 February 2020 National Institute of Research for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) joins GGBN

We are happy to announce that France's new National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), has joined GGBN. Genetic collections include thousands of microorganisms, plants, vertebrates, and terrestrial invertebrates.

14 January 2020 GGBN-GGI Awards Call for Proposals

We are happy to announce the call for proposals for the GGBN-GGI 2020 Awards Program. The program provides funding for projects that support the discoverability of new genetic collections through the Global Genome Biodiversity Network's Data Portal. The next submission deadline for proposals will be 24 April 2020. The proposal review committee will consider requests for up to 30,000 USD with clearly articulated budget justifications. For more information on the GGBN-GGI awards program, including information on how to apply, please visit the Global Genome Biodiversity Network-Global Genome Initiative Awards, Program Page.

08 January 2020 GGBN 2020 Conference: Abstracts for oral and poster presentations now accepted

The GGBN 2020 Conference Call for Papers is now open. Abstracts for oral and poster presentations will be accepted through April 1, 2020. The program committee is soliciting contributions that address the primary theme or other topics in biodiversity biobanking. Abstracts for oral and/or poster presentations may be submitted for the following session or symposium topics:

• Biodiversity Biobank Collections (from vertebrates to microbes)
• Large Scale Genomic Initiatives and GGBN
• Frontiers in biobanking collections: sampling and preservation
• Culture Collections
• Environmental specimens
• Nagoya Protocol-where to next?
• Crop wild relatives and medical plant diversity
• Biodiversity Biobank Data and Analytics
• Large-scale biobanks/Biobank Networks in Asia-Pacific

Registration will be opening shortly. A breakdown of registration fees, along with other conference information can be found on the GGBN 2020 Conference page.

06 January 2020 University of Kansas makes Ichthyology genetic collections discoverable with Specify 7

The KU ichthyology tissue collection

The University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute Ichthyology frozen tissue collection is housed in a state of the art cryogenic facility and has broad representation of both marine and freshwater fish diversity – over 11,200 individual tissue samples from 2,843 taxa (342 families and 1275 genera) and representing material from 85 countries (significant representation from the US, Australia, Belize, Ethiopia, Fiji, Nepal, Seychelles, South Africa, Taiwan, Tonga and more, as well as oceanic localities). The collection is 95% georeferenced and has linkages to vouchered specimens as well as over 14,000 Genbank sequences (and vice versa through the NCBI LinkOut system) and over 550 cited publications. These samples are now accessible through the GGBN data portal.

Specify 7

Specify 7 is a web implementation of the Specify Consortium biological collections data management platform. Specify 7 server code is open source and available from GitHub. This new generation of Specify combines the interface design components and data management foundation of Specify 6 with the efficiency and ease-of-use of web-based data access and cloud computing. Specify 7 is capable of exporting collections data in the Darwin Core Archive (DwCA) format. This capability expands on the existing Specify 6 functionality by supporting extensions to the core format (for GGBN, media and reference works amongst others) and also circumvents the IPT architecture currently used through Specify 6 data publishing. The Specify Consortium recently updated its data model to include all necessary fields to support GGBN publishing - https://www.sustain.specifysoftware.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Specify-Schema-Update-v2.4-Context.pdf. Find out more about Specify Collections Management Software here: https://www.sustain.specifysoftware.org/.

16 December 2019-GGBN 2020 Conference Travel Support Opportunities

GGBN is starting a travel support program in 2020 designed to assist members with the costs of attending the network’s meetings. While any GGBN member can apply, preference will be given to participants from upper middle income, lower middle income, and low-income countries, with additional consideration given to the value of the individual’s participation at the conference either for the member institution or for GGBN. The number of travel support recipients will be determined by the GGBN 2020 Conference organizing committee and be dependent on the number and quality of the applicants.

Those receiving travel support are required to make either an oral or poster presentation at the meeting and to be the first author on the presentation. Notification of support is contingent on the acceptance of the applicant’s abstract by the organizing committee.

All applicants will be notified by February 18, 2020. For those receiving travel support, directions will also be provided regarding how to book your travel. Please do not make any travel arrangements until receiving further instruction, as doing so may disqualify you from receiving support.

Please submit the following to ggbn@si.edu no later than February 1 to complete your application:

• Completed application form
• Copy of paper/poster abstract you intend to present
• Letter of support/recommendation from senior professional, supervisor, mentor, department head, or director that knows your work (sent directly from the recommending individual to ggbn@si.edu)
• In case your institution is already a GGBN member, then also a letter of support/recommendation from GGBN primary contact from your institution (also sent as a separate email to ggbn@si.edu)

See the GGBN 2020 Travel Grants Application Form for more information.

31 October 2019-the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México joins GGBN

We are proud to announce that the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México has joined GGBN as its second Mexican member. The Instituto de Biologia, UNAM houses thousands of DNA and tissue samples representing over one thousand species of microorganisms, plants, vertebrates, terrestrial invertebrates, and marine invertebrates.

29 October 2019-Denver Museum of Nature and Science makes genetic collections discoverable

We are proud to announce the fourth Arctos partner, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science has made a subset of its genetic collections discoverable through GGBN as part of the 2017-2018 GGBN-GGI awards program. The collection adds more than 31,000 vertebrate tissue samples to GGBN, mainly representing birds, mammals, and associated parasites, adding 50 new species to GGBN’s online collections.

15 October 2019-Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley makes genetic collections discoverable

We are proud to announce the third Arctos partner, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley has made a subset of its genetic collections discoverable through GGBN as part of the 2017-2018 GGBN-GGI awards program. The collection adds more than 160,000 vertebrate tissue samples to GGBN representing 40 new families, 400 new genera and 500 new species.

09 October 2019-University of Alaska Museum of the North makes genetic collections discoverable

We are proud to announce that the second Arctos partner, the University of Alaska Museum of the North has made a subset of its genetic collections discoverable through GGBN as part of the 2017-2018 GGBN-GGI awards program. The online collection includes more than 200,000 tissue samples representing mostly mammals and birds, in addition to other animals and plants. The collection adds 100 new families, 100 new genera and 100 new species to the GGBN Data Portal.

More Arctos partners will be making their genetic collections discoverable in the upcoming weeks.

02 October 2019-Museum of Southwestern Biology makes genetic collections discoverable

We are proud to announce that the first Arctos partner, the Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico/US has made a subset of its genetic collections discoverable through GGBN as part of the 2017-2018 GGBN-GGI awards program. The online collection includes more than 580,000 vertebrate tissues representing mostly mammals and more than 200,000 associated specimen data. The collection adds 100 new families, 400 new genera and 1,000 species to the GGBN Data Portal.

More Arctos partners will be making their genetic collections discoverable in the upcoming weeks.

13 September 2019-University of Torino joins GGBN

We are pleased to announce that the University of Torino has joined GGBN as part of the 2019 GGBN-GGI awards program. The collection comprises 2234 specimens representing approximately 120 families, 376 genera and 589 species of mainly Western Palearctic species. Genetic samples will be made discoverable through GGBN by September 2020.

11 September 2019-GGBN 2020 Conference: At-a-glance agenda, session topics, invited speakers and travel logistics

The GGBN 2020 organizing committee is happy to announce updates to the GGBN 2020 conference webpage to include the at-a-glance agenda, theme and session topics, invited speakers, travel logistics and accommodations. Early bird registration and abstract submission will open November 1st.

15 July 2019-Chicago Botanic Garden joins GGBN

We are pleased to announce that the Chicago Botanic Garden has joined GGBN as part of the GGI Gardens Program, an effort to enhance global plant collections by strategically collecting and preserving genome-quality samples representing global plant diversity. The Chicago Botanic Garden's collection comprises 13,286 samples representing approximately 5,000 plant species, a subset of which will be made discoverable through GGBN by August 2020.

11 July 2019-GGBN 2020 Conference Widening GGBN’s Horizon – engaging new users and collections

GGBN 2020, the 4th Conference of the Global Genome Biodiversity Network, will take place in Shenzhen, China from May 11-15. We are putting together an exciting program on topics surrounding the main theme of Widening GGBN’s Horizon – engaging new users and collections.

Sessions on the following topics are planned:

• Regional Biobanks (Asia-Pacific)
• Biodiversity Biobank Collections (from vertebrates to microbes)
• Frontiers in Biobanking Collections: Sampling and Preservation
• Biodiversity Biobank Data and Analytics
• Culture Collections
• Environmental Specimens
• Crop Relatives and Medicinal Plant Diversity
• Large Scale Genomic Initiatives and GGBN
• Nagoya Protocol

Invited speakers will be announced on the GGBN website this fall. We invite participants to submit abstracts for oral and poster presentations through the GGBN 2020 Conference registration system starting in November 2019.

Organizing Committee:

• Jonas Astrin, Zoological Research Museum-Koenig/Germany
• Katie Barker, GGBN Secretariat, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian/US
• Jason Chen, Beijing Genomics Institute, China National GeneBank/China
• Manuela da Silva, FIOCRUZ/Brazil
• Gabi Droege, GGBN Technical Secretariat, Berlin Botanic Garden/Germany
• Meiliang Zhou, China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation/China
• Sarah Tassell, Manaaki Whenua-Landcare Research/New Zealand
• Thai Pham, Vietnam National Museum of Nature/Vietnam

09 July 2019-Upcoming Regional Workshop in Tbilisi (November 4-7 2019)

We are sorry to inform you due to unforeseeable circumstances we were unable to secure funding for the dates of November 4-7, but are actively working with different State organizations and donors within Georgia to secure funding for this workshop sometime next year.

Workshop Title: New Horizons for Conserving and Restoring Biodiversity in Gene Banks and Regional Cooperation

• Location: Tbilisi, Georgia
• Host: The Association for Farmers Rights Defense, AFRD

The Workshop will provide a platform for discussion on the following key themes:

• Recent country experience and efforts on mainstreaming biodiversity conservation, ex-situ, in situ into Gene Bank development
• Approaches and partnerships to mainstream National Gene Bank cooperation at Post Soviet and Eastern European, Central European sectoral levels
• Insights, challenges, and opportunities to manage for better results harmonizing GGBN Methodologies, Measurements, and Taxonomy Data

Program:

• Day 1, 04.11.2019 Plenary session

• Day 2, 05.11.2019 Working Groups

• Day 3, 06.11.2019 Working Groups

• Day 4, 07.11.2019 Excursions

Outcomes: The workshop is expected to guide the development of the International Initiative for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity's modern conservation methods and the cooperation and networking of Gene Banks. The results of the workshop should be disseminated and taken up and promoted by concerned stakeholders in such a way that they are ultimately reflected in the Genetic Resource management practices for both developed and developing countries. The overall aim is to help improve the cooperation of scientific and research communities and achieve truly sustainable use of Genetic Resources that is environmentally sound and economically viable.

Please contact Dr. Kakha Nadiradze (nadiradzekakha@gmail.com) and GGBN (GGBN@si.edu) by July 20th to express your interest in participating.

08 July 2019-University of Karachi joins GGBN

We are pleased to announce that the University of Karachi, Center for Plant Conservation has joined GGBN as part of the GGBN-GGI 2019 Awards Program. The awarded project will publish 1,000 samples from across Pakistan representing a diversity of biotic communities and relatively rich flora.

01 July 2019-Job Advertisement-Cell Culture Specialist-Zoological Research Museum A. Koenig

The Biobank at Zoological Research Museum A. Koenig in Bonn, Germany, is looking for a full-time cell culture specialist. The position can be filled immediately and is funded for three years within the project "Forensic Genetics for Species Protection", aimed at protecting endangered animals. Tasks include:

• Establishing cell cultures and cryopreservation
• Developing methods and coordination of lab workflows, especially for cell culture; data analyses
• Management of the cell culture lab; responsible for instruments
• Handling biobank samples (incl. DNA, tissue): documentation, databasing, preparation, preservation
• Sample acquisition & research: international correspondence on samples; organizing logistics
• Supervision of research assistants, students, and interns

Your profile:

• Extensive, documented hands-on experience in the cell culture lab (ideally, but not necessarily with animals)
• Finished vocational training or university degree in life sciences
• Capacity to organize and manage molecular infrastructures and projects
• Good IT skills (esp. with spreadsheets, database knowledge)
• Fair knowledge of the English language for international correspondence etc.
• High interpersonal skills; most meticulous and responsible, proactive way of working; competent at problem-solving

ZFMK offers a highly motivating environment at a renowned and pioneering research facility and the possibility to work independently. Salary and benefits are according to a public service position in Germany, TV-L E 9.

Equally qualified severely disabled applicants will be given preference.

Please send your application by e-mail attachment, including a detailed CV, until July 19, 2019 to Mrs. Heike Lenz: h.lenz@leibniz-zfmk.de. In case of questions concerning the position please contact Jonas Astrin: j.astrin@leibniz-zfmk.de, tel. +49-228-9122 357.

For more information about ZFMK see http://www.leibniz-zfmk.de/en

News Archive

Older news can be found in the GGBN News Archive.