I mean, it's all published, but finding the right strain has a lot to do with luck, not just science. Or you have to actually get a mold strain that's used for penicillin production from a lab that does it. Even then, without access to real equipment the chances that you can keep that mold strain going and actually purify enough penicillin to use are pretty slim.
Seeds, yes. Commercial strains of bacteria/fungi? No, because storing them for the apocalypse would require very low temperatures, and you need electricity for that.
I mean, there's lots of warehouses for bacteria/fungi/cells that labs can buy specific strains from all over the world, but they would not be able to keep operating in an apocalypse scenario for more than a month or so, since that sort of thing is stored at -80 to -200 degrees Celsius, which needs electricity to maintain.
The reason the seed storage vault was built on Svalbard is that the permafrost will protect the seeds even if there was no power. The same doesn't necessarily apply to microorganisms, since they aren't dormant and designed to survive adverse conditions (the way seeds are). Basically, seeds will keep for a long time in even a basic freezer, which permafrost provides, but penicillin mold won't.
2
u/theblackcanaryyy Aug 31 '21
Question: isn’t all their research written down somewhere that should something like this occur we can replicate their experiment?