Barcoding facility for Organisms and tissues of Policy Concern - Centre of Excellence (BOPCO)
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 (1) to act as a focal point for identifying biological materials upon request, using both morphological and DNA-based techniques, (2) to produce well-documented DNA barcodes of relevant taxa, (3) to maintain reference collections of barcoded organisms and the corresponding DNA barcode databases, and (4) to explore and implement new tools and techniques for species identification and DNA barcoding.