Starting in the 1970s, the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research starting collecting skin cells of various animals and putting them into deep freeze. While Jurassic Park might always stay science fiction, the notion was that one day the technology would exist to bring endangered animals -- or at least their DNA -- out of the cryogenic freezer and back to life.
That time has come, and an Israeli scientist is deeply involved in this remarkable achievement that Discover magazine called one of the top 100 stories of 2011.
Today there are cells of more than 800 kinds of animals in storage at the so-called Frozen Zoo, and two animals now have more hope for survival thanks to advances in stem-cell research by Dr. Inbar Friedrich Ben-Nun and her team at the Scripps Research Institute in California, overseen by lead researcher Dr. Jeanne Loring.
Some of the frozen genes could replenish animal populations at risk for "inbreeding depression," a negative consequence of reproduction among few individuals -- the same basic problem involved in the offspring of close family members.
Read more at Israel21C
