How animal cells in cold storage can help with wildlife protection in S'pore

Such repositories aid research into species, with the aim of saving them from extinction

- Angelica Ang

Singapore is building a "Noah's Ark" of South-east Asian animals, and its collection — housed at two locations here — is slowly swelling with the region's mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles.

These repositories of life at the NUS Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum and Mandai Wildlife Reserve contain just traces of these animals.

Their cells and tissues, stored at sub-zero temperatures, can help researchers better understand these species, contributing to their conservation.

Special cooling technologies used by Mandai Wildlife Group, which manages Singapore's five wildlife parks, can even keep these cells alive.

When such cells are thawed, they can continue to grow and replicate.

This paves the way for novel applications of technology like in-vitro fertilisation.

Far into the future, researchers could potentially use this to bring extinct animals back to life, although there are no plans to do so for now.

In January, Mandai Nature - the conservation arm of Mandai Wildlife Group - achieved a breakthrough: Researchers there successfully banked the live cells of 10 species of birds.

These include the critically endangered Bali myna, and endangered lilac-crowned amazon and milky stork.

Previously, only live mammalian cells were effectively banked in the Republic's wildlife parks.

Dr Sonja Luz, chief executive of Mandai Nature, said this marks the latest addition to Singapore's conservation toolkit.

By shelving away the cells of threatened species, the odds of saving them in the future — should their natural population continue to dwindle — may significantly improve, she said.

THE PROMISE OF BIOBANKING

Biobanking is the storage and preservation of biological material from animals, plants and other forms of living matter.

It is most often done through cryopreservation, where samples are kept frozen at sub-zero temperatures.