A collaboration between ATCC® (American Type Culture Collection) and the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute® (CLSI, formerly NCCLS) greatly enhances the usefulness and value of ATCC's Web-based standards resource to both CLSI members and other laboratory scientists in need of standard test methods.

This collaboration enhances the ATCC Standards Resource, providing mutual customers of the two organizations with rapid access to cross-referenced information about widely used microbiology test methods and laboratory procedural standards from CLSI that cite ATCC products.

Part of the wider ATCC standards program, the Web-based resource is a searchable database of standard test methods and commercial assays that is linked to information on ATCC's collection of reference cultures. The search tool allows scientists and laboratory professionals to determine which ATCC-held bacteria, viruses, fungi or cell lines are specified in CLSI standards.
"CLSI's participation with the ATCC Standards Resource makes up-to-date information on a wide range of CLSI documents easily available,"said Joseph Perrone, ScD, Vice President for the Standards Program at ATCC.

“Websites for the two organizations will be conveniently linked so that users can quickly find and purchase procedural standards and the ATCC biological reference materials needed to carry out those standards," Perrone added.

Users of the ATCC Standards Resource can enter a specific CLSI standard and the Web tool will return information about the ATCC reference materials necessary for carrying out that procedure. The search tool can be accessed through ATCC at www.atcc.org.

For over 80 years, ATCC has played a key role in the area of standards. ATCC uses meticulous characterization and preservation methods that maintain reference materials in a manner that permits reproducibility of results across time and among laboratories around the world.