The world's first bank of biomaterials of all living organisms of the Earth will be created by Moscow State University, Rector of Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichy said at a press conference on Thursday.
“We have received the largest grant from the Russian Science Foundation. I call this project Noah's Ark. It involves the creation of a depository - a data bank of all life on Earth, including what was before, and those species that are disappearing and those that are alive. We set the task to create such a collection,”said Sadovnichy.
According to him, at the first stage, 1 billion rubles were allocated for this project. The depository for storage of biomaterials will be built on the new territory of the university in the Vorobyovy Gory valley.
“There will be opportunities for cryopreservation of various cellular material, which can then be reproduced. There will be information systems, not everything needs to be kept in a test tube,”said the rector of Moscow State University.
He added that a system will also be created that will unite this databank with others that exist in Russia, and maybe abroad.
“If this project is implemented, it will be a breakthrough in the history of Russia. Russia will be the first in the world to create Noah's Ark, said Sadovnichy, explaining that there is no such unified bank of biomaterials in the world yet.
The press service of Moscow State University explained that the basis of such a bank will be the collections that the university already has - the collections of the Museum of Anthropology of Moscow State University, the Herbarium, the Zoological Museum, the Botanical Garden. The implementation of this project will unite the efforts of many departments of Moscow University. First of all, young scientists of Moscow State University will be involved in the work on the project.