Welcome to CRBIP

The taxonomic characterization of two novel Cyanobacteriota species has been recently published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (IJSEM).

This polyphasic evaluation, conducted by members from the Collection of Cyanobacteria (PCC) and the group 'Genome Informatics & Phylogenetics' (GIPhy), has successfully shown that the strains Thalassoporum mexicanum PCC 7367(T) and Tumidithrix helvetica PCC 7403(T) represent novel species of the pseudanabaenalean families Thalassoporaceae and Pseudanabaenaceae, respectively.

The Priority Research Programs and Equipment initiative on biotherapies – PEPR Biothérapies – recently launched its first call for proposals to support innovative initiatives in the field of biotherapies. One of the six selected projects was "PARADIGM", led by the Paris Public Hospital Network (AP-HP), in partnership with the Institut Pasteur and the CEA. The aim of the project is to establish a national biobank of bacteriophages, which will serve as a key resource to produce effective treatments for resistant infections. This biobank, focused on three priority multidrug-resistant pathogens: Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and

Acinetobacter baumannii, will be a key part of the Phagocenter, a new operational center directly linked to clinical requirements.

Within the PARADIGM project, the Collection of Institut Pasteur (CIP) will be responsible for compiling and managing this national biobank for bacteriophages and host bacterial strains.

As part of valorization actions at CRBIP, the Genome Informatics and Phylogenetics (GIPhy) expertise group implemented large-scale bioinformatics strategies to reanalyze bacterial strains from CIP that have been sequenced since 2016. As a result, 463 of these new genome assemblies (mainly type strains) were publicly distributed to the scientific community.

The concept of “Target Specimen Profiles” (TSPs) for biobanks collecting specimen panels for diagnostic applications has been published.

A target specimen profile (TSP) corresponds to the required characteristics of the specimen panels needed to demonstrate that a diagnostic kit meets the target product profile (TPP). TSPs can guide biobanks in the prospective collection of sample panels to support the development and validation of diagnostics.

Ten examples of TSPs, specific for infectious diseases, are provided in the Supplementary Materials.

Dear customers,

Please note that the Collection of Institut Pasteur will be closed on July 4th for inventory purposes.

Thank you for your understanding and we look forward to receiving your strains as deposits and supplying our microbial strains of on August 25th, 2025.

Thanks for bearing with us !

The CIP team

The MALDIBANK kick-off meeting is taking place this week in Braga, Portugal.

The CRBIP will be contributing with its expertise, bacterial strains of biomedical interest, cyanobacterial strains, and their mass spectra. We are also going to set up a platform for external quality assessments on MALDI_ToF MS.

With a poster presentation on our new microbial Biobank Information Management System (MBIOLIMS), one oral presentation on the upcoming phage bank, and an oral presentation on our newly developed “culling tool” for samples of human origin, a CRBIP delegation has participated in the ISBER annual meeting taking place at Montral, Canada, on May 12-16.

The CRBIP is pleased to announce that the reception of isolates of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAb) has started, as part of the ECDC Europe-wide surveys for the surveillance of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria.

These isolates are collected from acute care hospitals in European countries for the ECDC CRAb survey 2024–2025, an activity of the European Antimicrobial Genes Surveillance Network (EURGen-Net).

The CRBIP will performs tests of purity, viability and identity of the received isolates; maintains long-term, safe seed stocks of the isolates; and performs antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST).

A new biobanking MOOC is launched by CRBIP and the Training Department of Institut Pasteur. For more information and to register, click on the button below.

A warm welcome to Dr Meriem Paris who joined the CRBIP as the new Head of the CIP. Dr Paris brings her experience in microbiology across different types of microorganisms, biotechnology, management of microbial collections, biosafety/biosecurity and regulatory compliance.

Warm congratulations to Dr Mariana Ferrari who was appointed as the new Head of the CRBIP Project Management Office. Dr Ferrari is a microbiologist and cell biologist by training and has long experience in building and coordinating successful multi-partner collaborations in biobank infrastructures.

The CIP and CRBIP PMO Units of CRBIP work together in the operations of the central biobank for the bacterial isolates that are collected in the context of the ECDC genomic-based surveys.

For the first survey on carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAb) in Europe, click on the button below.

The CHIP Unit of CRBIP is excited to be a partner in the new IHI project COMFORT.

This project focuses on patient-centric blood microsampling techniques, which collect less than half a millilitre of blood. For more information, click on the button below.

The CRBIP is officially member of the European Liquid Biopsy Society.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) from human or microbial cells are part of liquid biopsies and represent important biomarkers in many human diseases.