National BioResource Project of Japan

The National BioResource Project (NBRP) was started by the Ministry for Education, Culture Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in 2002 and has been operated by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) since FY2015.

The aim of NBRP is to collect, preserve and distribute bioresources (such as animals, plants, microbes, cell lines and DNA materials) that are essential materials for life science researches, and to upgrade the bioresources responding to the demands from research community by enriching values of bioresources through developing preservation technology and analysis of genome information. In addition, NBRP aims to improve the function of the information center which provides whereabouts and characteristics of bioresources.

Five Divisions of RIKEN BRC have been selected as Core Facilities; Experimental Animal for Mouse, Experimental Plant for Arabidopsis, Cell Engineering for human and animal cell lines, Gene Engineering for genetic materials and Microbe for general microorganism. In addition, two Divisions have been chosen as Sub Core Facilities; Experimental Animal for rat and Cell Engineering Division for cord blood.