Staff directory
Nathalie Smitz
Biology
Invertebrates
Invertebrates
Publication details
Gombeer, S., Meganck, K., Smitz, N., Vanderheyden, A., De Meyer, M. & Backeljau, T. 2020. How to identify plants and animals using DNA analysis? (BopCo - demo video).
Multimedia
The Barcoding Facility for Organisms and Tissues of Policy Concern (BopCo) aims at developing an expertise forum to facilitate the identification of biological samples of policy concern. Such identifications can rely on traditional morphology-based approaches requiring taxonomic expertise and/or DNA-based techniques demanding specific skills and access to a fully equipped molecular laboratory.
The intent of BopCo therefore is to act as a focal point for identifying biological materials upon request, using both morphological and DNA-based techniques, to produce well-documented DNA barcodes of relevant taxa, to maintain reference collections of barcoded organisms and the corresponding DNA barcode databases, and to explore and implement new tools and techniques for species identification and DNA barcoding.
BopCo is jointly run by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) and the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA), and is part of the Belgian federal contribution of the Belgian Science Policy Office (Belspo) to the European Research Infrastructure Consortium LifeWatch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGXuCarPfVA&t=1s