Southeast Asia abounds with rich and diverse microorganisms that serve as biotechnological resources for industries related to drugs/medicines, food, and industrial products, to mention a few. To strengthen ASEAN research community towards sustainable use of microbial resources, the ASEAN Network on Microbial Utilization (AnMicro) has been established since 2014. AnMicro aims to serve as a platform for knowledge sharing of the efficient management of microbial resources and research on microbial utilization among the ASEAN research community. Currently, AnMicro includes members from 14 institutes in 6 countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
In order to initiate the establishment and maintenance of a comprehensive microbial database in the ASEAN region, AnMicro introduced AmiBase, the service hub of microbial data in ASEAN.
The core of AmiBase infrastructure are microbial diversity data which have been systematically gathered from microbial culture collections in ASEAN countries, academic publications and reports, and public diversity databases (such as Catalogue of Life, GBIF, NCBI BioProject). Moreover, AmiBase provides a standardized protocol for sharing data among AnMicro Network and to third-party organization via web service API. AmiBase also includes data analytics technology into the platform in order to help scientists and researchers to gain relevant knowledge about ASEAN microbial diversity.
The ultimate beneficiaries are ASEAN citizens. Public sectors, governments, policy makers, NGOs and other research institutions would benefit from the improved knowledge on management and utilization of microbial diversity based on the high-quality integrated information from AmiBase.
Please contact us at e-mail: administrator@amibase.org