A Guide to the Deposit of Biological Material for Patent Purposes

Dr Samantha Law, NCIMB

Dr Samantha Law has worked at NCIMB, the UK’s major repository for environmental bacteria, since 2005. She is Curator of the collection, and responsible for all patent deposits made under the Budapest Treaty.  Working with the collection has enabled her to gain rounded experience in the management of a biobank.  Sam also plays a senior role in the management of client projects and the operation of the safe deposit and secure storage facilities offered by NCIMB, ensuring they are maintained to ISO or cGMP standards.  She is also a member of Executive Committee of the Society for Applied Microbiology (SfAM) and the Scottish Industrial Biotechnology Development Group (SIBDG).

After completing a degree in Applied Biology (Molecular and Microbiology) at Nottingham Trent University, Samantha studied the ‘Microbial biochemistry of slow sand filters’ for her PhD at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen. Since then she has retained an interest in microbial communities and biofilm formation.

Thus far, she has had a varied career and has been involved in the microbiological monitoring of waste water treatment plants and coastal waters, lectured in food microbiology, worked on a European Union project to improve the microbiological monitoring of sterilised milk and monitored the quality of beer produced at Guinness.