Biobank

The Biobank is the youngest collection of the LIB and was established only recently in 2017. All DNA- and tissue samples of the museum are stored and curated in a special room which is temperature-controlled and furnished with freezer compartments of various formats (-20°C und -80°C). The samples are used for molecular research projects but also constitute an ever-growing biodiversity library at the genetic level.

Our Biobank is closely aligned with the nine morphological research collections and complements them at the genetic level. Several thousand fixed animal tissue samples, DNA extractions and PCR products are stored here. These are derived from the morphological vouchers in the research collections and are the genetic fingerprint of the museum specimens. Current biodiversity research increasingly uses genetic data that are derived from museum specimens to address questions of evolution, population genetics and conservation biology. Biobanks are an important tool to facilitate such research projects.

More generally, the purpose of Biobanks is to establish repositories of global biodiversity in the current era of anthropogenic mass extinction.