Leibniz Institute DSMZ

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Leibniz Institute DSMZ - German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures GmbH

Abbreviation	DSMZ
Predecessor	Collection of Microorganisms Göttingen (SMG)
Merged into	German Collection of Microorganisms (DSM)
Formation	1969
Type	Independent, non-profit organization
Purpose	National culture collection
Location	Braunschweig
Fields	Microbiology, Cell Biology
Leader	Jörg Overmann (scientific director), Bettina Fischer (administrative director)
Affiliations	Leibniz Association
Staff	192 (status: December 2020)
Website	www.dsmz.de

The Leibniz Institute DSMZ - German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures GmbH (German: Leibniz-Institut DSMZ-Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH), located in Braunschweig, is a research infrastructure in the Leibniz Association. Also the DSMZ is the world's most diverse collection of bioresources (status 2021: 75,000 bioresources).^[1][2] These include microorganisms (including more than 32,000 bacterial strains, 690 archaeal strains, 7,000 strains of yeasts and fungi) as well as more than 840 human and animal cell cultures, over 1,500 plant viruses, over 940 bacteriophages, and 250 plasmids (status 2021).^[2] Since 2010, the scientific director of the Leibniz Institute DSMZ has been Jörg Overmann, a microbiologist with a PhD from the University of Konstanz.^[3] He holds a professorship in microbiology at the Technical University of Braunschweig.^[3] Since August 2018, he has led the institute with leadership with Bettina Fischer as administrative director.^[3]