FROM TISSUE TO TREES

How critically endangered plant species are lab-grown in Singapore

- Ang Qing

In a nondescript building in Kent Ridge, botanists have cracked the code to mass produce clones of critically endangered trees here to aid their fight against extinction.

At the heart of their effort are stem cells extracted from the native trees, which are sterilised and placed in nutrient-rich solutions to spur their transformation from tissue to tree.

Building on the decades-old technique of plant tissue culture, scientists at Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory have developed specialised protocols to propagate tissue from nine species of native trees at risk of vanishing from Singapore.

The laboratory's assistant director of plant transformation and tissue culture, Dr Somika Bhatnagar, said the Singapore Endangered Native Tree Project plugs the gaps where growing from seed and conventional propagation methods like stem cuttings are too slow or difficult to save species on the brink.

Asia's tropical forests can go without flowering or fruiting for many years, making it challenging for conservationists to track and harvest their seeds.

The race against the clock is especially urgent for Singapore's critically endangered trees, which number fewer than 50 mature individuals in the wild.

"Sometimes, even these seeds may have low viability," said Dr Somika, a plant molecular biologist who has been researching trees for more than two decades.

Surrounded by stacks of baby plants encased in culture vessels, she said: "Precision tissue culture allows limited or damaged specimens to be rescued and ensures that the genetic lines of these rare trees are preserved."