China boasts some of the world’s most abundant species biodiversity, particularly southwestern China near the Indo-Burman Biodiversity Hotspot. Unfortunately, large-scale changes in China and abroad have markedly impacted species biodiversity. In 1986, Prof. Shi Li-Ming spearheaded the development of the Kunming Wild Animal Cell Bank at the Kunming Institute of Zoology. The goal of the Cell Bank was to use cryopreservation of genome/germplasm resources to preserve wild animal cell lines, tissues, and germ cells obtained from species throughout southwestern China and Southeast Asia.

Since its establishment, the Cell Bank has grown considerably. Today, the Cell Bank is a branch of National Platform of Experimental Cell Resources for Science and Technology, Wildlife Resource Bank of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the China Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, and also affiliated with Institute’s State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution. Collections include 1689 preserved cell lines from 317 animal species—54 of which are now national protected wildlife in China—as well as over 1000 tissue samples from 200+ animal species, 45 sets of animal chromosome-specific probes and bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) and fosmid libraries of four animals.

Alongside the animal resources originally intended for preservation, the Cell Bank also now contains human cell lines, including a variety of healthy tissues, EBV-transferred lymphocyte cell lines, tumor and genetically distorted cell lines. The current mandate of the Cell Bank, to collect a wide variety of cultures and preserve a record of regional biodiversity, is aimed at providing convenient and economical experimental materials to facilitate advanced research into modern biology and medicine at both cellular and molecular levels. To date, the Kunming Cell Bank has provided to research programs at colleges, universities and scientific research institutes domestically and internationally.

The Cell Bank provides high-quality resources and services including:

-cell lines/tissues/DNA samples

-cell culture training/trouble-shooting

-cell culture/genetic research equipment

-cell line karyotype analysis

-STR/mycoplasma contamination detection

-chromosome painting

-cell line preservation

Contacts:

32 Jiaochang Donglu, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China

Email: kcb@mail.kiz.ac.cn

Tel.: 0871-65195375