ALDAN: A Russian university is planning to collect the world’s largest DNA bank consisting of each creature to have ever existed.
Moscow State University (MSU) will create their very own Noah’s Ark in a project to gather and preserve the DNA of every living creature.
The project has received a grant of one billion roubles (AU$237.77 million) from the government, marking the largest ever sum granted in aid of science.
MSU’s rector Viktor Sadivnichy explained: “It will involve the creation of a depository – a databank for the storing of every living thing on Earth, including not only living, but disappearing and distinct organisms.
“It will also contain information systems. If it’s realised, this will be a leap in Russian history as the first nation to create an actual Noah’s Ark of sorts.”
The latest world DNA bank will be housed in a 430 square metre site on the university’s campus and is expected to be completed in 2018.
Another DNA bank can be found at San Diego Zoo. This frozen zoo has been collecting specimens since 1976, and currently holds around 8,400 samples from more than 800 species.
The Frozen Ark Project in the UK is also freezing DNA and other animal matter in a bid to prevent species extinction.
Run conjointly by zoos, museums, biological societies and research facilities, the centre holds 28,604 DNA samples with over 7,000 from a red list of species that are endangered.
Endangered animals hopefully protected from extinction by the Frozen Ark Project include the Indiana Bat, the Bonefish, the Spiny Lobster, the Channel Islands Fox and Cat’s Paw Coral.
However, the Russian counterpart plans to be more ambitious still in its plan to cryogenically freeze the DNA of every living thing that has ever inhabited the earth.
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