Biological Material Deposits

Safe, Secure, and Confidential

Whether you need to cryopreserve your biological material for the purpose of patent procedure or would simply prefer to store it outside of your existing lab, our state-of-the-art facility in East Boothbay, Maine, and dedicated resources will exceed your expectations.

We currently accept a wide range of biological material and have unmatched experience working with phytoplankton and bacteria from both marine and terrestrial environments.

Our cryopreservation and related technical services are housed within our National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota (NCMA), which possesses one of the largest and most diverse collections of phytoplankton in the world.

The World Intellectual Property Organization has designated NCMA as an International Depositary Authority for the purposes of patent procedure under the Budapest Treaty. In addition, the USPTO has authorized NCMA to handle U.S.-only patent process deposits (BT are usually PCT patents). The Plant Variety Protection Office lists us as an approved deposit authority for PVP certificates.

Deposits may be vegetatively propagated plant tissue, row crop seeds, non-pathogenic bacteria (individual strains and consortia), algae (unicellular and multicellular), protozoa (non-parasitic), archaea, or aquatic viruses. For more information, visit our patent deposit page or email patentdeposit@bigelow.org.

In addition to patent deposits, Bigelow Laboratory also accepts biological material for deposit into our private collection, a secure offsite storage option for risk management plans, and maintenance of valuable biological strains. Depositors typically choose to cryopreserve their biomaterial in our private collection, but perpetual cultivation is also an option.

If your biological material is not cryopreserved, we can work with you to cryopreserve it or store it in liquid medium on a long-term basis. All deposits are completely confidential and made available only to the depositor.

For more information, visit our private collection page or email ncma@bigelow.org.