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LICHTENFELS J RA - 1265-15-00 |
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Submitted to: Journal of Parasitology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: 10/18/1994 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: The Agricultural Research Service maintains numerous collections of plant and animal specimens as research tools. Among these is the U.S. National Parasite Collection which supports research on parasites of animals at ARS laboratories and at other national and international centers. This manuscript provides information on where specimens of parasites are located and presents a plan to enhance the services provided by parasite collections to include undenatured frozen parasite tissue and a registry of living collections in addition to the denatured museum specimens currently available. The improved access to undenatured tissue and living specimens will benefit ARS and other parasite research and assist the U.S. Department of Agriculture in meeting its germplasm mandates. Technical Abstract: Several factors are placing increasing demands on a few institutions that maintain the major parasite collections in the United States. These include: the consolidation of smaller specialized and personal collections into a few large collections; the need for tissue banks and germplasm collections has added requirements for specialized equipment and expertise not previously available in parasite collections; the need to develop databanks to provide the information in the collections to the users; and biodiversity initiatives that will require significant increases in collection resources and services. Noted factors placing increased demands on parasite collections have also provided an unprecedented opportunity for the collections to increase significantly their user community. To address these increasing demands, some planning is already underway for the second century of United States parasite collections. These plans are reviewed and others proposed. |
