Our division was established in 1987 as the RIKEN Gene Bank. When the RIKEN BioResource Center was established in 2001, the bank was recognized as Gene Engineering Division. Since 2002, the Division has been selected as a core facility of DNA resources by National BioResource Project funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan for collection, quality control, preservation and distribution of genetic materials of human, animal and microbe origin.