CSBR: Ownership Transfer: Rescue of two orphaned yeast collections

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The Phaff Yeast Culture Collection at the University of California Davis is used for basic research on yeast physiology, yeast ecology (especially yeast-insect associations), comparative genomics, and taxonomy, including discovery of new yeast species. Yeast collections are also used for applied research, including study of food and beverage fermentation, food spoilage, biofuels exploration, and the development of improved methods to identify yeasts that cause human infections. This award will fund the transfer of two existing collections, the Starmer collection from Syracuse University and the Ganter collection from Tennessee State University. The Phaff Yeast Culture Collection is the fourth largest public yeast collection in the world, with over 7000 strains. A total of 4000 yeast strains will be transferred to UC Davis, expanding the size of the Phaff collection by 50 percent. In addition, the project staff participate in an annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day, which attracts visitors to the yeast exhibits to learn about microbiology and societal benefits derived from yeasts and culture collections.In this project, the Starmer and Ganter collections will be shipped to UC Davis where they will be cryopreserved, re-identified by ribosomal sequencing, archived off-site, added to the Phaff collection database, and DNA sequences will be deposited in GenBank. All three collections include numerous undescribed species, and in some cases, the only known representatives of certain species. Geographically and taxonomically diverse yeast collections like this are now virtually impossible to re-collect. Once the transfer is complete, the combined collection will be available to the global scientific community. By posting DNA sequences of accessions in GenBank and expanding information available on the Phaff collection online catalog (http://phaffcollection.ucdavis.edu), the collection will be more visible and valuable for all users.