Creating a Frozen Biodiversity Library to Safeguard Endangered Species

The US Fish & Wildlife Service, in collaboration with nonprofit Revive & Restore, is creating a "genetic library" of endangered species through biobanking. Biological samples from animals are being cryogenically preserved and genetically sequenced, with the information uploaded to a publicly available database. This frozen library of living cells will aid in conservation efforts, including introducing genetic diversity into captive breeding programs and potentially cloning. The project has already collected samples from five endangered species and aims to biobank every endangered mammal in the US.