(Inside Science) — In 1975, medical doctor Kurt Benirschke founded the Center for the Reproduction of Endangered Species with the goal of using molecular genetics tools to save endangered species. In the corner of the modest lab, which contained a freezer with liquid nitrogen to bank cells, Benirschke hung a poster: “You must collect things for reasons you don’t yet understand.”
That credo holds true for scientists in cryobiology today. Researchers are in a race against time to bank the tissues and cells of creatures and plants disappearing from our world. They don’t necessarily know what they’ll be able to do with these genetic libraries in the future, but to lose them would be unthinkable in the midst of a global extinction crisis.
