La colección de cultivos de hongos del Instituto de Medicina Tropical "Pedro Kourí": funciones y retos

A review was made on the collection of fungi cultures of "Pedro Kouri" Institute of Tropical Medicine" that was created in 1980 to give an answer to the increasing needs of the newly established laboratory of Mycology of that institution at that time. The collections of microbial cultures are more important every day as a way for the ex situ conservation of the microbial biodiversity. They are in charge of collecting, saving, identifying and preserving those strains of interest for biomedical research, teaching, industry, agriculture, etc. At present, the collection of the institute has a total of 262 strains from 81 species of fungi, actinomycetes and algae, all of them of interest for Medical Mycology. The main methods for the maintenance of the cultures have been the conservation in distilled water and freeze-drying, in additions to the periodical mincing in agar media, refrigeration and freezing: The service of reference and control of quality, the identification of strains, teaching, the taxonomic studies, and the safeguard, among others, are some of the main fun ctions developed by this collection. Nowadays, the collections of fungus cultures must face the challenges represented by the emerging pathogenic fungi, as well as the incorporation of molecular techniques confirming the quality of the strain preservation methods. These collections should play an important strategic role in the preservation of the biodiversity, taking into account legal and biosafety aspects, too.