The gateway to environmental specimen banking

The International Environmental Specimen Bank Group (IESB) promotes the world-wide development of techniques and strategies of environmental specimen banking. IESB is devoted to both, established Environmental Specimen Banks (ESBs) and new ESBs in the planning stages.

Cryogenic storage of environmental specimen. Photo: Fraunhofer IME

The idea of environmental specimen banking evolved in the second half of the 20th century. First banking activities were set up in the 1960s, e.g., in Sweden (Odsjö 2006) and Japan (Tanabe 2006), and in the U.S.A. in 1979 (Becker and Wise 2006) and Germany (BMU, 2008). Currently, new specimen banks are planned in Korea and France. Milestones for ESB development were international workshops and symposia in Vienna, Stockholm, Charleston, SC (USA) and Sydney.

 

News - 6 November 2012

Norwegian ESB officially opened on 6 November 2012! Read more about the opening ceremony and visit their new website.

 

Upcoming events

International Conference on Environmental Specimen Banks, Shanghai, China, 12-15 October 2013

 

Joint activity

Proposal for an ESB international collaborative case study on a single chemical of interest

All ESBs are encouraged to take part in an international case study. The idea is to foster exchange of knowledge and ideas between ESBs via a joint analytical exercise.

Download proposal