A new project aims to preserve coral reefs from extinction by cryogenically freezing genetic materials with the aim of repopulating extinct species in the future.

“The Recovery program will harvest at-risk species, and then hundreds of small samples of tissue will be rapidly cooled into liquid nitrogen for storage. Years later the samples can be recovered and grown – first ‘in vitro’ and later in protected coral nurseries – for eventual re-population into the reef,” project collaborator Professor Douglas MacFarlane said.