What is the ICE COLD library?
ICE COLD is the Innovative, Collaborative, Exploratory Cold Regions Organism Library for Discovery in Biotechnology
It is a collection of live microorganisms (i.e. bacteria and fungi) originating from cold regions soil, snow, and ice. Microbes have been isolated from the Arctic, from Antarctica, and from high altitude sites.
The ICE COLD library is maintained by the Soil Microbiology Group at the U.S. Army’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL).
Why keep a microbe collection?
Microbes can be used for biotechnology
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Bacteria produce a wide range of enzymes, proteins, and sugars, which can be harvested for use in synthetic biology applications.
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Psychrophiles and psychrotrophs may be able to carry out useful processes and interactions, such as bioremediation, in low-temperature conditions.
Microbes drive critical environmental processes
- As our climate warms, frozen regions of the planet will begin to thaw, releasing trapped carbon and previously dormant organisms into the ecosystem. Culturing and characterizing these organisms helps to fill in our knowledge of environmental microbes.
What do we do with the ICE COLD microbes?
After isolating microbes from the environment, we typically characterize their biology and sequence their DNA. Some of our research on the ICE COLD microbes can be found in our publications.
Who can access the ICE COLD library?
We primarily maintain the ICE COLD collection for our own research. However, we welcome enquiries regarding opportunities for collaboration and access to ICE COLD. Please contact us for further information.
What microbes are in the ICE COLD library?
A list of the microbes available in ICE COLD and their known characteristics can be downloaded here (catalog.xlsx). Additional information about selected microbes can be found in our publications. Some isolates from the collection are featured in the image gallery on this website.