Scientists Suggest Freezing Endangered Animals’ Cells and Preserving Them on the Moon

As more species become threatened with extinction, scientists have proposed an ambitious idea to secure the planet’s biodiversity: a back-up repository of animals’ genetic data, frozen and stored on the moon.

In a paper published late last month in the journal BioScience, researchers propose assembling a box full of cryopreserved cells from a diverse range of animal species—then sending it to a shadowed region on the moon, where conditions are naturally cold enough to keep the samples frozen.

“The purpose is really to create a biorepository to ensure long-term safeguarding of species from extinction,” study co-author John Bischof, an engineer studying cryobiology at the University of Minnesota, tells Minnesota Public Radio’s Cathy Wurzer. “This is a way of actually putting away really important genetic material in a place where it will be safe for, potentially, generations.”

The idea of a repository to protect biodiversity has been decades in the making. Lead author Mary Hagedorn, a senior research scientist at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, has spent 20 years working on cryopreserving corals. Now, experts across the planet are working to build coral biobanks that will hold samples of every coral species on Earth. Last year, another research team led by Hagedorn successfully cryopreserved and revived fragments of coral in a world first for conservation.

A lunar biorepository would follow the same idea, but for a wider range of animals. The team hasn’t made any final decisions about what creatures would have their cells included, but they might focus on pollinators, endangered species, ecosystem engineers and animals of cultural importance. The plan is to use a type of skin cell known as a fibroblast cell, which can be easily cryopreserved. For species that don’t exactly have skin, the team might include larvae or reproductive cells.

Could the moon save Earth’s biodiversity?

In a recent paper, Smithsonian scientists proposed a genetic Plan B should we lose more of Earth's biodiversity. Listen to lead author Mary Hagedorn, discuss the topic on the podcast Space Cafe! https://t.co/pSIi6nWpTh

— National Zoo (@NationalZoo) August 17, 2024

When cells are cryopreserved, they are still alive, which means they could be revived and cloned, reports the Guardian’s Tanya Procyshyn. But cryopreserved cells have to be frozen at minus 196 degrees Celsius. “If it varies much from that, it starts to damage the material,” Hagedorn tells Smithsonian magazine.

On Earth, that means samples have to be cooled with liquid nitrogen and electricity and maintained by human staff. A disruption to any of these resources could jeopardize the collection. But in permanently shadowed regions of the moon that never get sunlight—such as the floors of craters near its poles—the ambient temperature may be low enough to keep cryopreserved cells viable without any maintenance or artificial cooling system, the team reports.

Some of the scientists’ inspiration comes from the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway, otherwise known as the ‘doomsday’ vault. There, more than one million seed samples representing nearly every country in the world are preserved in rooms cut into a rocky mountainside underneath the permafrost, which naturally cools them. The vault works as a fail-safe to protect key plant species in case something happens to them on the rest of the planet.

But in 2017, the seed vault was flooded with water from melting permafrost amid climate change. No seeds were lost, but the incident was a signal to the research team that even seemingly secure places on Earth could be vulnerable to natural disasters. Then, in 2022, part of Ukraine’s national seed collection was destroyed by a Russian bomb.

“We’re seeing the beginnings of both climate disasters and social disasters that could collide in ways that we just couldn’t possibly imagine,” Hagedorn says. Of the need for a biorepository, she says, “I think it’s always good to be ready for the future, no matter what.”

Of course, even on the moon, a collection of animal cells would face threats. With only a thin atmosphere, the moon is exposed to solar and cosmic radiation that can degrade DNA. To combat this, the team plans to design and test a box that can protect the cryopreserved samples from radiation en route to their lunar destination, then bury the repository several meters underground, where it will be shielded by rocks.

“The authors do a good job laying out many of the challenges,” Benjamin Greenhagen, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory who was not involved in the research, says to Science News’ Gennaro Tomma. But lunar dust, which sticks to materials and “gets in everything,” could be another problem, he adds. “If their storage requires mechanisms or seals, they will want to consider dust mitigation from the very earliest stages.”

So far, the researchers have managed to cryopreserve skin samples from a reef fish known as the starry goby. While the goby itself isn’t endangered, it’s a key species for the health of coral reefs.

The team still has a slew of challenges to think through before their plan can come to fruition. But in publicizing their idea, they hope to find new partners who can bring fresh perspectives to the work.

“One of the main reasons we wrote the paper was really to start people thinking and to get a wider audience,” Hagedorn says. “We need more people who are interested in working with us, and hearing their voice, hearing their concepts.”

They will also have to build relationships internationally and take into account the cultural dimensions of their work. “There are communities on Earth to whom the moon is sacred,” Greenhagen says to Science News. “The authors should proactively engage these communities and look for an inclusive path forward.”

Soon, the researchers might have an opportunity to test their idea. When NASA canceled its planned VIPER mission to the lunar south pole over budget concerns in July, it left a vacant spot on an upcoming space flight in September 2025. The researchers heard that NASA was looking for proposals of projects that could fill that spot, so they got together and assembled a plan.

“We sat on Zoom for almost a week and a half … and we now have a mock-up or design for a box that we would carry the samples in,” Hagedorn says. The goal would be to fly the box, measure the amount of radiation at its exterior and interior, then run experiments back on Earth exposing cryopreserved cells to that level of radiation.

She anticipates hearing whether they got a place on the mission within two weeks. They’re also looking into conducting experiments on the International Space Station.

Some other experts questioned whether a lunar biorepository is the best move for endangered species at this time. “The cost and effort involved in establishing such a resource on the moon would be very substantial and would detract from ongoing conservation efforts,” Rob Brooker, head of ecological sciences at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland who was not involved in the research, says to CNN’s Jack Guy.

“I don’t think it’s [the] right idea for right now,” Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told CBS News’ Alexis Guerrero, David Schechter and Grace Manthey in April. “I think we really need to focus on protecting more of the natural world, so we don’t lose species in the first place.”

But to Hagedorn, conditions on Earth already call for a repository of animal biodiversity. She says the best time to get these samples to the moon was “last week, actually.”

“Life is precious and, as far as we know, rare in the universe,” Hagedorn says in a statement. “This biorepository provides another, parallel approach to conserving Earth’s precious biodiversity.”

Carlyn Kranking | | READ MORE

Carlyn Kranking is the assistant web editor for science and innovation.