<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/03/frozen-zoo-animal-cells-san-diego-endangered-species>
"In a basement laboratory abutting an 1,800-acre wildlife park in San Diego,
California, Marlys Houck looks up to see a uniformed man holding a blue
insulated lunch bag filled with small pieces of eyes, trachea, feet and
feathers.
“Ah,” she says, softly. “Here are today’s samples.”
The bag in question contains small bits of soft tissue collected from animals
who have died of natural causes at the zoo. Today, the samples include a leaf
frog and a starling.
The man holding the bag is James Boggeln, a volunteer with the zoo, who hands
it off to Houck, the curator of this laboratory, known as the “Frozen Zoo”. She
and her team will start the process of turning these bits of tissue into a bank
of research and conservation for the future. They will put the tissue into
flasks where enzymes digest them, then the lab members will slowly incubate
them over the course of a month – growing an abundance of cells that can be
frozen and eventually reanimated for future use.
At nearly 50 years old, the Frozen Zoo holds the world’s oldest, largest and
most diverse repository of living cell cultures – more than 11,000 samples that
represent 1,300 different species and subspecies, including three extinct
species and more that are very close to extinction."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
