Iranian Biological Resource Center Preserves, Identifies, Collects Biological, Genetic Resources

“The society always faces challenges of adequate and sustainable supply of housing, food and health, so, the governance system of any country must have a plan for these components. If we want all members of the society to have access to these three essential needs, there should be confidence in maintaining the resources that can provide these components for the society,” Reza Azarbaijani said.

He added that the Iranian Biological Resource Center, as a bio bank, is one of the strategic and infrastructural centers that has the mission of preserving, identifying and collecting the biological and genetic resources of Iran.

“The main goal of this mission is not only to pay attention to the contemporary period, but also to allow future generations to have access to plant and animal resources that have evolved in the long term. The current generation should be able to hand these resources to the next generation and leave them as a memory,” Azarbaijani said.

He also described "food security" as the most important necessity related to the genetic and biological reserves.

Increasing the world population in coming decades will cause an important challenge for human community about sustainable development for production of sufficient food and to achieve a healthy community. Biological resources are as important as other natural resources like water, soil and weather. Paying attention to enormous diversity of animal, plant and microorganism species and their application will result in sustainable national development.

Due to the great importance of biological resources in life sciences, Iranian Biological Resources Center was established in 2008 under the authority of Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research (ACECR). Main goal of this center is improving the national researches for collection, preservation and studying the biological resources. Accordingly, in addition to supporting other biological resource centers of the country and establishing a national network of biological resources, this center will attempt to be the pioneer center for collecting, completing, organizating, standardizing and preserving of biological resources to achieve the development of life science and technology, enhancement of life quality and hygiene, improvement of food safety and preservation of natural resources and biodiversity.

4155/v