DPI Culture Collection

Access to the collection for bio-discovery and commercialisation

The DPI Culture Collection is a unique collection of cultures of microfungi rich in species diversity. The DPI Culture Collection is located within the Queensland Plant Pathology Herbarium, which has more than 100,000 specimens, including over 82,000 fungi representing virtually all of the known plant pathogenic microfungi in Queensland. The DPI Culture Collection contains about 28,000 living cultures of fungi that are permanently preserved in a metabolically inactive state. Each specimen is catalogued and includes information about its collection.

The DPI Culture Collection represents a potential source of natural products (chemicals, proteins, genes) that may have economic value in the search for new compounds (bio-discovery) in pharmacology, biotechnology, industrial and agricultural applications.

This collection holds Australia’s largest repository of microfungi found in tropical and subtropical regions. The value of the collection is that it has been recognised as one of the world's top 10 collections, as determined by the uniqueness of its fungal isolates. Most of the specimens have been obtained from plants, soils and insects.

The role of the DPI Culture Collection is to acquire and disseminate knowledge of the diversity of microfungi for the benefit of the Queensland and Australian community. The application of this knowledge and expertise supports sustainable agricultural enterprises by providing solutions for market access, biotechnology, production research, extension services and natural resource management. Research emphasis focuses on the taxonomy of microfungi of agricultural and environmental importance.

The DPI Culture Collection is maintained by Drs. Roger Shivas and Yu Pei Tan, whose research focuses has accelerated fungal taxonomy.

Objective

This EOI is seeking organisations with commercial expertise in microbial-based bio-discovery wishing to secure the rights to access, either whole or specific parts of, the DPI Culture Collection for commercial bio-discovery purposes.

Location and access

The DPI Culture Collection is located at the Queensland Government Ecosciences Precinct site in Brisbane and is maintained as a reference collection for agricultural research.

Access to the DPI Culture Collection may be through the supply of specimens to laboratories within Australia under a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA), or work with our team to collect new specimens.

Isolates held in the collection

Opportunity

Possible access and commercial arrangements may include the following options or a combination of options, which are negotiable based on interest and demand:

• exclusive (with the exception of DPI staff or its agents) or non-exclusive access to the collection
• access to the whole collection or more parts of the collection
• payment of up-front and/or annual fees to access the collection, the quantum to be based on the level of access
• royalty payment through commercialisation
• one-time/one-off fee to access a specific part of the collection
• fees to undertake specimen collection, identification and storage
• hosting a scientist(s) and providing access to a working laboratory or facilities based on site fees.

Intellectual property

Negotiable.

Licencing and royalties

Negotiable.

EOI components and process

Requests for access should include an indication of what option(s) for accessing the collection are sought, the area of interest, and the duration of accessing the DPI Culture Collection to assist in determining availability and capability of providing the desired samples.

Depending on the request, access to the DPI Culture Collection may be provided to multiple parties concurrently for different purposes.

DPI reserves the right to enter into negotiations and contractual arrangements with any organisation after the EOI process.

Caveat

Following the closing of the EOI, an evaluation panel will review the submissions and progress accordingly. If no submissions are received by the closing date, DPI reserves the right to directly approach and negotiate a commercial arrangement or consider an offer from an external party. The release of an EOI is an 'open process' meeting the principles of probity - open, fair, equitable and transparent.