Microbiomes form an invisible biodiversity within the human body (50% of cells in our body are non-human) and in the environment. Given the rapidly ongoing processes of urbanization and loss of traditional lifestyles to antibiotics, processed foods and others, global human-associated microbial diversity is continuously shrinking, at a time when science has just started understanding the relevance and potential of our microbial environment and the microbiome.

The Microbiota Vault was founded as a non-profit initiative in 2019 to establish a backup bio- and databank in Switzerland for the long-term preservation of microbial biodiversity that is critical for human and planetary health. The initiative takes inspiration from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault with the same purpose, i.e. a backup gene bank of collections to secure the foundation of our future food supply.

More concretely, this initiative empowers sovereign Local Working Collections and local researchers particularly in the Global South by giving them access to a safe repository for their microbial biodiversity and data, but also access to international research frameworks and expertise. Alongside the biobank, the Microbiota Vault also catalyzes an equitable research ecosystem by enabling a global network for partnerships and fostering studies by setting adequate and inclusive protocols and standards for collection and preservation.