Page 7 - De-Extinction: The Science of Bringing Lost Species Back to Life

Barbara Durrant, director of reproductive physiology at the Frozen Zoo in San
Diego, submerges animal cells in liquid nitrogen, which will keep them frozen
indefinitely. The Frozen Zoo saves reproductive cells, somatic cells, embryos,
and other tissues from many kinds of animals, some of them endangered or
extinct. The cells might be used for artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization,
cloning, or other procedures designed to increase animal populations.

The Frozen Zoo was founded in 1972, when researchers
began collecting skin cells from rare and endangered species.
Genetic technology was very new then, and the founders
didn’t know how the samples might be used, only that future
scientists might find a use for them.
The Frozen Zoo is the world’s oldest and largest frozen tissue
collection, but other institutions have their own collections.
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has
the Cryo Collection. The Cincinnati Zoo has CryoBioBank. The
University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom has the Frozen
Ark. All are saving tissues and DNA—collected from animals in
zoos, captive breeding programs, and wild populations—in the
hope that the material, if needed, could someday be useful to
science, maybe even to save species from extinction.

THE FROZEN ZOO 91