The Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen - DSMZ - (German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures) GmbH was founded 1969 as the national culture collection in Germany. The independent, non-profit organization is dedicated to the acquisition, characterization and identification, preservation and distribution of Bacteria

Bacteria

Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...

, Archea, fungi, plasmids, bacteriophages, human and animal cell lines, plant cell cultures and plant viruses. The collection is member of the WGL-Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Since 1994 Prof. Dr. Erko Stackebrandt acts as scientific director.

The DSMZ has, at present, about 30.000 cultures, such as 19.000 different cultures of microorganisms, 750 plant cell cultures, 550 plant viruses, 600 human an animal cell lines, and 6700 patent- and safe deposits. Only biological material of risk group 1 and 2 is housed.
The scientific services are offered to support fundamental research and processes of industrial production or ecological development, but also for the elucidation and solution of biological material. The DSMZ is recognized as an International Deposit Authority (IDA) for the deposit of biological material under the Budapest Treaty

Budapest Treaty

The Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure, or Budapest Treaty, is an international treaty signed in Budapest, Hungary, on April 28, 1977. It entered into force on August 9, 1980, and was later amended on September 26,...

.

The research activities are focussed on collection-related fields, including microbial taxonomy

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...

, phylogeny, evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

, molecular biodiversity

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

 studies, development of preservation methods for biological material, cell line characterization and identification as well as detection and elimination of mycoplasms and viruses from human and animal cell lines. Information on cultures and services, catalogues and lists are available online at [www.dsmz.de].
The DSMZ is a member of worldwide organizations like the „European Culture Collections' Organisation

European Culture Collections' Organisation

The European Culture Collections' Organisation is a European non-profit organisation which promotes the collaboration and exchange of ideas and information on all aspects of culture collection activity...

“ (ECCO), the „World Federation for Culture Collections

World Federation for Culture Collections

The World Federation for Culture Collections is an international body formed under the umbrella of the International Union of Biological Sciences and a Federation within the International Union of Microbiological Societies....

“ (WFCC) and the „Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Global Biodiversity Information Facility

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the world; GBIF's information architecture makes these data...

“ (GBIF). The DSMZ also has close working links with several other international culture collections, such as ICMP in New Zealand, CFBP in France, BCCM/LMG

Belgian Co-ordinated Collections of Micro-organisms

The Belgian Co-ordinated Collections of Micro-organisms is a Belgian government funded consortium of four scientific institutions, who manage and exploit a collection of fungi, bacteria and plasmids...

 in Belgium, NCPPB

National Collection of Plant Pathogenic Bacteria

The National Collection of Plant Pathogenic Bacteria is a UK Government owned, non-profit-making biological culture collection which specialises in acquiring, authenticating, preserving, and distributing plant pathogenic reference bacteria, and DNA for research in the life sciences...

in the UK, and others.