MOSCOW, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Great Britain is home to the Frozen Ark project, an effort to preserve the DNA and living cells of endangered species. The San Diego Zoo has been operating a so-called frozen zoo -- freezing animal semen, feces and other samples in liquid nitrogen -- since 1976. <\/p>\n
But Russia's Moscow State University aims to outdo them both, several times over. The research university recently received a grant from Russia's government -- the country's largest scientific grant ever -- to build a genetic library, filled with frozen DNA from every living creature on the planet. <\/p>\n
\"I call the project 'Noah's Ark,'\" MSU rector Viktor Sadivnichy recently told reporters. \"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 extinct organisms.\" <\/p>\n
Construction of the databank facility will commence quickly, with plans for the depository to be completed by by 2018. <\/p>\n
\"It will enable us to cryogenically freeze and store various cellular materials, which can then reproduce. It will also contain information systems. Not everything needs to be kept in a petri dish,\" explained Sadivnichy. <\/p>\n
The new database will first be sourced with materials already being held by the university's many research departments. All of its departments will also be involved in sourcing new material. <\/p>\n
While the new database will be grand in its aims, it's not entirely unique; the country has also begun work to create a storage facility in Siberia that will use thick, ice-cold permafrost to preserve a variety of seed and plant samples for posterity. <\/p>\n
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\nRussia to build world's largest DNA databank<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"