Health Protection Agency Culture Collections

Formation of the Health Protection Agency in 2003 brought together four of the existing UK culture collections, NCTC, NCPV, NCPF and ECACC

The Health Protection Agency provides national and international reference collections which are sources of micro-organisms of medical importance, together with human and animal cell cultures. The cultures, and in some cases their products such as DNA, are available to support research, diagnostic and the pharmaceutical industries. The four culture collections within the HPA are:

EUROPEAN COLLECTION OF CELL CULTURES (ECACC)
One of the world's premier collections of authenticated cell cultures, with over 40,000 cell lines representing 45 different species.

NATIONAL COLLECTION OF PATHOGENIC FUNGI (NCPF)
The UK's only culture collection specialising in fungi pathogenic to humans and animals. The NCPF holds about 2500 strains, most of which are available for sale and distribution.

NATIONAL COLLECTION OF PATHOGENIC VIRUSES (NCPV)
Preserves well-characterised, authenticated human pathogenic viruses in a secure facility, and supplies the agents or nucleic acids derived from them to the scientific community according to national and international guidelines.

NATIONAL COLLECTION OF TYPE CULTURES (NCTC)
Supplies reference bacterial cultures of medical, scientific and veterinary importance world-wide to support academic, health, food and veterinary institutions. The collection comprises over 5000 bacterial cultures, over 100 mycoplasmas and more than 500 plasmids, host strains, bacteriophages and transposons.

The collections also support a range of identification, characterisation and testing services. Together they provide a comprehensive range of biotechnology resources for both academic and commercial customers alike.