About Us - HPA Culture Collections
The Health Protection Agency Culture Collections is a not-for-profit strategic business unit within the Health Protection Agency (HPA), UK.
Our role is to preserve and distribute authenticated cell lines and microbial strains of known provenance for use in medical science and laboratory healthcare. By so doing the HPA Culture Collections helps to assure the quality and validity of these activities and underpins the healthcare science infrastructure in a manner commensurate with our position within the Health Protection Agency.
The HPA Culture Collections represents a mergence of four, separate, clinically oriented culture collections that pre-dated the formation of the HPA, specifically: the National Collection of Type Cultures (NCTC) formed in 1920, the European Collection of Cell Cultures (ECACC) formed in 1984, the National Collection of Pathogenic Fungi (NCPF) formed in 1946, and the National Collection of Pathogenic Viruses (NCPV), formed in 2001.
Following the formation of the HPA these four collections, individually, became part of the same organisation and this provided the opportunity to integrate the four businesses financially and commercially. The HPA Culture Collections commenced operations as a single business, working to a fully integrated business plan, in April 2006.
HPA Culture Collections laboratory operations remain at their original parent sites at Porton Down, Colindale and Bristol in order to exploit the particular scientific expertise of each respective site. However the sales, marketing, financial and quality management has been centralised at Porton Down, based on the original ECACC organisation.
The HPA Culture Collections is amongst the largest and most successful Biological Resource Centres in the world, and is one of relatively few that has achieved sustainability by successfully reconciling its public sector position with classical commercial organisation and operating principles. We shall continue to develop and improve our products and services to meet the needs of the healthcare scientist, and to further the aims of the Health Protection Agency.
Related Links:
About ECACC
About NCTC
About NCPV
About NCPF
HPA Website
Registered Trademarks
