The ABRC was established in 1991, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in response to community needs and with a goal to represent a central repository for Arabidopsis research resources. The Center is associated with the Center for Applied Plant Sciences (CAPS) and is located at The Ohio State University. Our mission is to acquire resources developed by leaders in the field, to propagate and maintain those resources using best practices and to make them available to researchers and educators around the world. We are also involved in educational initiatives which complement the community service mission of the ABRC.

The ABRC serves a dynamic community of plant researchers with a common goal to understand the basic processes of flowering plants, as well as to apply this understanding to further crop improvement. The activity of the Center is essential towards fulfilling the community goal of having multiple mutant alleles for every one of the Arabidopsis ~27,000 genes. Approximately 17,000 registered users from diverse disciplines utilize the Center by ordering between 100,000 and 150,000 samples annually.

Education resources are the most recent addition to our collection and include seeds, DNA and instructional materials. Education kits for K-12 and college levels are being developed by the combined effort of ABRC and the community. Some of these have been further developed at ABRC, as part of our “Greening the Classroom” program. In September 2011 we obtained funding from the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) to further develop our education program into a central hub for Arabidopsis teaching resources, including the knowledgebase TRAINED (Translating Research on Arabidopsis Into a Network of EDucational resources), now incorporated in the educators portal.

Contribution of education materials is welcome.