-ACA-DC-

Group(s) of biological resources stored in the collection: bacteria, yeasts,

Cryovials with preservation beads (three per strain; storage at -80 °C)

Bacteria - 2500 strains

Yeasts - 400 strains

Public / confidential deposit

The research interests our group, holding the ACA-DC collection, lie in the field of lactic acid bacteria, with emphasis on taxonomy, physiology, metabolism, bacteriocins, probiotics, genetics, genomics, metagenomics, proteomics, bioinformatics and technological performance and applications. The group has published 429 publications in the above fields, including 135 research and 12 review papers in peer-reviewed journals, along with 21 book chapters, and presented 14 non-conference invited papers, 163 papers in international conferences and 90 papers in national conferences. Moreover, the group is involved in 3 patents and has developed 2 Business Plans and 5 Licencing Agreements with international companies regarding specific applications of research results in the field of dairy food production. Since 1987, the group has been committed in maintaining several active international collaborations with both academic and industrial partners across Europe and Oceania, being involved in 20 EU funded projects, in 39 National projects and 10 projects funded by third parties, totalling more than 6 M€ in actual funding for the Agricultural University of Athens. Of paramount importance, is the establishment of the first food related culture collection in Greece, the ACA-DC collection (http://www.aca-dc.gr/), which is member of the European Culture Collection Organization (ECCO) and the World Federation of Culture Collections (WFCC). Since its establishment in 1987, the mission of the ACA-DC collection is the systematic exploration and preservation of the microbial diversity of the Greek traditional foods, which can be considered as one of the major innovations in the field of Food Science and Technology in Greece. Based on the above, in 2010, the group was nominated for the European Latsis Prize “Biodiversity”. The group was worldwide first to describe two new bacterial species, namely Streptococcus macedonicus, for strains isolated from traditional Greek Kasseri cheese (1998), and Lactobacillus zymae, for strains isolated from traditional Greek sourdough (2005). Moreover, in 2006, strains of two rather unusual Lactobacillus species, namely Lactobacillus rennini and Lactobacillus acidipiscis, were isolated from Kopanisti cheese. Through the use of a range of modern and advanced methods, the potential of this diverse collection has become clearer regarding the possibilities in flavour bio-generation, bio-texturant molecule development, bio-preservative molecule production and probiotic potential that are presented and can be aimed at solving major technological hurdles in flavour, texture, shelf-life, food safety and human health that need to be overcome.