About CCALA culture collection
Culture collection of Autotrophic Organisms (CCALA) of the Institute of Botany of the AS CR is one of the oldest World’s culture collections of algal strains. It was started already in 1913 by V. Uhlíř at the Charles University in Prague. His strains unfortunately died during the 1st World War and the basis of current collection was formed by strains gathered by Prof. E.G. Pringsheim at the German part of the Charles University.
The Culture Collection of Algae at Laboratory of Algology in Třeboň was founded in 1961 by Jiří Komárek and later enlarged by František Hindák with a high number of original isolates, mainly chlorococcal algae. In 1979, the CCALA Culture Collection of Autotrophic Organisms formed at the Institute of Botany by merging algal collections from Třeboň and Charles University in Prague, of which the latter one contained original cultures of Robert Chodat (1865-1934), Silvestr Prát (1895 - 1990), Ernest George Pringsheim (1881 - 1970) or Viktor Czurda (1897 - 1945) and non-seed plant cultures of G. Lorbeer and Milan Keil. CCALA collection is gradually being extended with new isolates.
The main goal of the collection is to collect a variety of important and in various aspects intreresting clonal cultures of algae and cyanobacteria. Specialized sub-collections include polar, snow, and thermal springs isolates, sub-collection of terrestial heterocytous cyanobacteria is newly being formed recently. We also have 45 type cultures in our offer. CCALA is a member of the World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC) and World Data Centre for Microorganisms (WDCM). We offer strains, culturing media and other services for reasonable prices. We care about special wishes of our customers. We accept new not genetically modifed (not GMO) unialgal/unicyanobacterial strains and clonal moss cultures without fungal contamination that are of environmental, biochemical, taxonomic, or commercial importance.
CCALA collection has three members of staff at this moment, Josef Juráň (curator), Vlasta Titlová and Bohuslava Zahradníková (technicians).