These strains are isolated mainly from benthic and planktonic environments of Finnish lakes and the Baltic Sea. One fifth of the strains are maintained in pure axenic cultures. The collection also contains cyanobacterial strains isolated from lichen symbiosis and from a variety of habitats in Brazil as part of an ongoing the Academy of Finland and Brazilian FAPESP funded collaboration with Prof. Marli de Fatima Fiore (Univ. of Sao Paolo). The culture collection has formed the basis for important publications advancing the knowledge of toxic cyanobacteria as well as the bioactive compounds they produce. The collection also forms the basis for experiments to understand the physiology, ecology and genomics of these important toxic cyanobacteria from Finnish lakes and the Baltic Sea. The collection has already lead to over 150 publications in international peer reviewed journals.
The UHCC culture collection is now part of the microbial HAMBI collection of the Microbiology Division. HAMBI is a member of the HiLIFE, Helsinki University Biodiversity Collection Research Infrastructure (HUBCRI) together with collections from the Natural History museumn (LUOMUS).
Strains can be ordered from the HAMBI webpage for a small fee. Strains can be searched from an online database.