Biobanking for conservation

This event provides an overview of conservation biobanking and the challenges it faces, whilst emphasising how and why biobanking should be incorporated into mainstream conservation planning to combat the biodiversity crisis.

Experts explore a variety of biobanking initiatives to show how new specimens can be incorporated, and reveal advances in coral cryopreservation and its conservation significance. 

As highlighted in the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Global Assessment Report, humanity is facing a biodiversity crisis with an estimated million species at risk of extinction.

Cryopreservation (often called biobanking), through the cryogenic preservation of DNA, blood and or tissues and reproductive cells is an increasingly feasible conservation support option for a wide range of taxa groups.

However, the number of species currently represented in biobanks remains extremely low relative to the conservation need and the availability of suitable material, especially in zoos and aquariums. To realise biobanking’s conservation potential it needs to become a normalised component of the one plan approach for species conservation.

Speakers

• Paul Pearce-Kelly, Zoological Society of London: "Why biodiversity conservation needs cryopreservation"

• Professor William Holt, University of Sheffield and Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC: "Biobanking for breeding threatened species"

• Kirsty Lloyd, CryoArks, Natural History Museum: "The UK animal biobanking landscape supporting research and conservation"

• Dr Mary Hagedorn, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology: "Technological Advances to Help Save Coral Reefs"