The Frozen Zoo: The University Of New Orleans And The New World Of Saving Endangered Species

This is the scientists' "frozen zoo." By banking cryogenically preserved genetic material for future use, they create a safety net against the extinction of a species. This genetic material can be collected from animals in the wild, preserved in liquid nitrogen, and used to increase the number of individuals of captive species with the goal of repopulating them in their original habitat.

"If you freeze cells properly, you can revive them through precise thawing. The cells we're putting in this frozen zoo are viable and functional," says Dr. Betsy Dresser, the Virginia Kock/Audubon Institute Endowed Chair in Reproduction and Conservation of Endangered Species at the University of New Orleans (UNO), director of the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species (the Research Center) in New Orleans, and professor in the UNO Department of Biological Sciences' new Ph.D. program for Conservation Biology. She says, "The frozen zoo can, theoretically, store this material for hundreds, even thousands, of years."

This is where the recent affiliation agreement between the University of New Orleans and the Research Center comes into play. It pledges to "establish a research and educational alliance" to focus on relevant issues of biodiversity and the environment. This is being accomplished through a new Ph.D. program in Conservation Biology that provides graduate level educational experiences in the study of biodiversity and species conservation. "Jazz" is just one success scientists are building on.

A little more than a year ago, New Orleans celebrated the birth of Jazz. No, not the kind practiced by Louis Armstrong and the Marsalis family. This Jazz is a wide-eyed, yowling African wildcat.

The African wildcat is endangered, so the birth of any new offspring is cause for celebration. But Jazz's birth was extraordinary. His mother, Cayenne, is an ordinary house cat; a completely different species.

Jazz was conceived by transferring a frozen-thawed embryo into his surrogate mother's womb. Her eventful pregnancy led to Jazz's birth last November. The rare and exotic Jazz was a triumph of painstaking research and modern cryo or frozen technology (low temperature biology). The birth is a world's first utilizing the procedure.