Gene Banks
Gene Banks
Gene banks are institutions and collections established to preserve genetic diversity for future generations. Although the term is often associated with seeds, modern gene banks can contain seeds, living plants, tissue cultures, embryos, semen, pollen, DNA, microorganisms, animal cells, and other biological materials. Together, these collections serve as repositories of genetic variation that may otherwise disappear as species decline, traditional crop varieties are abandoned, habitats are destroyed, or agricultural systems become increasingly dependent on a limited number of varieties and breeds.
Gene banks have become an important component of global food security and biodiversity conservation. Crop collections preserve traits that plant breeders may need to respond to drought, heat, pests, diseases, changing climates, and evolving agricultural requirements. Animal, wildlife, forest, aquatic, and microbial collections extend the concept beyond crops, preserving biological diversity that may have future scientific, ecological, agricultural, or conservation value.
The international gene-bank system includes national collections, university and research collections, regional institutions, international agricultural research centers, community seed banks, specialized cryobanks, and global backup facilities such as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
Global Gene Banks and Food Security
The world's agricultural gene banks collectively conserve millions of samples, or accessions, representing cultivated crops, traditional farmer varieties, breeding lines, crop wild relatives, and other plant genetic resources.
Organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations monitor the conservation of plant genetic resources and have developed international standards covering collection, storage, viability testing, regeneration, documentation, safety duplication, and distribution.
The CGIAR network maintains some of the world's most important international crop collections. These include genetic resources of rice, wheat, maize, beans, cassava, potatoes, sweetpotatoes, bananas, forage plants, sorghum, millets, chickpeas, cowpeas, and many other crops.
These collections function as more than archives. Researchers and breeders can obtain conserved germplasm and search for characteristics that may help agriculture respond to new challenges. Genetic material stored decades ago may contain resistance to a newly important disease, tolerance of drought or heat, nutritional characteristics, or other traits that have disappeared from widely grown commercial varieties.
As climate change alters agricultural environments, the diversity maintained within gene banks represents a pool of biological possibilities from which future crops can be developed.
Svalbard Global Seed Vault and Safety Duplication
One of the best-known elements of the international conservation system is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.
The vault does not replace conventional gene banks. Instead, it functions primarily as a backup facility where gene banks deposit duplicate samples of seeds already maintained in their own collections.
This system provides protection against accidental loss caused by war, natural disasters, equipment failure, financial disruption, political instability, or other emergencies. Collections damaged or lost at their original institutions may potentially be reconstructed using their duplicated material.
By 2026, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault held more than 1.4 million seed samples representing agricultural diversity contributed by gene banks around the world.
Deposits have included traditional crop varieties, modern breeding materials, crop wild relatives, culturally important plants, and genetic resources from national and international collections.
The reconstruction of collections associated with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas after disruption caused by the Syrian conflict demonstrated the practical value of safety duplication. Seed samples previously deposited in Svalbard could be withdrawn and used to help rebuild working collections elsewhere.
Svalbard therefore represents the final backup layer of a much larger conservation system rather than a single centralized repository for the world's seeds.
Gene-Bank Science, Genomics, and Technology
Gene banking has increasingly become integrated with genomics, biotechnology, digital information systems, artificial intelligence, and advanced cryopreservation.
Traditional gene-bank management depended heavily on identifying, storing, regenerating, and documenting accessions. Modern genomic methods allow researchers to examine the genetic composition of thousands of stored samples simultaneously.
Genotyping can help identify duplicate accessions, verify genetic identity, reconstruct relationships among varieties, locate previously unrecognized diversity, and identify genes or genomic regions associated with valuable traits.
Large-scale studies of tobacco, barley, cowpea, sorghum, ricebean, apples, wheat, and other crops demonstrate how gene-bank collections can be transformed into resources for genomic discovery and crop improvement.
Researchers can increasingly combine genomic information with climate, geographic, phenotypic, and agricultural data. These approaches make it possible to search enormous collections for accessions that might possess traits suitable for future environments.
Cryopreservation provides another important conservation technology. Biological materials can be stored at extremely low temperatures, greatly slowing biological processes and allowing certain tissues or reproductive materials to remain viable for long periods.
Cryobanking is particularly important for crops that cannot easily be conserved as conventional dried seed. Bananas, potatoes, cassava, fruit trees, and many tropical species may require tissue culture, field collections, embryo storage, or cryogenic preservation.
Digital Gene Banks and Genetic-Resource Data
Modern gene banks increasingly depend on digital infrastructure.
A physical seed sample has limited scientific value if researchers cannot determine what it is, where it originated, how it was collected, what traits it possesses, or whether it can be requested.
International databases such as Genesys bring together information from gene banks throughout the world. By the end of 2025, Genesys contained information concerning more than four million accessions.
These databases allow researchers to search genetic resources by crop, geographic origin, biological characteristics, institution, taxonomy, collection information, and other criteria.
Standardized passport data are particularly important because genetic resources may pass between institutions and countries over many decades. International data standards help ensure that collections remain understandable and usable.
Digital gene-bank systems increasingly incorporate trait information, genomic data, artificial-intelligence-assisted searching, multilingual interfaces, and software for managing seed viability, regeneration, multiplication, distribution, and other operations.
The development of digital gene banks reflects an important transition in conservation: storing biological material remains essential, but making that material discoverable and scientifically useful has become equally important.
International Crop Collections
A network of international research centers maintains collections of some of humanity's most important food crops.
The International Rice Research Institute maintains the International Rice Genebank, containing more than 130,000 accessions of cultivated rice, traditional varieties, breeding material, and wild relatives.
The International Potato Center conserves potatoes, sweetpotatoes, and Andean roots and tubers through seed storage, tissue culture, field collections, and cryopreservation.
The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics maintains major collections of sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet, chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, and other crops important to dryland agriculture.
The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture conserves African food crops including cowpea, cassava, yam, Bambara groundnut, soybean, maize, sorghum, and banana.
AfricaRice maintains an internationally accessible rice collection containing African rice, cultivated varieties, and wild species.
The International Center for Tropical Agriculture and the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT maintain globally important collections of beans, cassava, tropical forages, and bananas.
CIMMYT maintains one of the world's largest collections of maize and wheat diversity.
These international collections are particularly important because crop diversity does not correspond neatly with modern national borders. Crops have moved between continents for centuries, and modern agriculture depends heavily on genetic resources originating in many different regions.
National and Regional Gene Banks
National gene banks preserve genetic resources that may be especially important to the agriculture, ecology, history, and culture of individual countries.
Collections documented in the uploaded material include institutions in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Brazil, India, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Peru, Ecuador, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Japan, the United States, Canada, Hungary, and other countries.
Kenya's national genetic-resource system, for example, maintains crop diversity including sorghum, beans, finger millet, maize, cowpea, and other species.
Brazil maintains multiple specialized Embrapa collections covering crops including maize, sorghum, wheat, vegetables, cassava, forage plants, oil palm, and tropical genetic resources.
India's National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources coordinates the collection, conservation, characterization, documentation, and use of plant germplasm, while separate institutions maintain major livestock genetic-resource collections.
The United States National Plant Germplasm System consists of a distributed network of repositories specializing in particular crops and plant groups.
The United Kingdom's Millennium Seed Bank and Vegetable Genebank demonstrate another important distinction within conservation. Agricultural gene banks primarily conserve resources useful for food and farming, while botanical seed banks may preserve large numbers of wild plants for biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration.
Crop Wild Relatives and Agricultural Resilience
Crop wild relatives are wild species genetically related to domesticated crops.
They are particularly important because they may contain characteristics lost during thousands of years of crop domestication and agricultural selection.
Wild relatives can contain resistance to insects and diseases, tolerance of drought, heat, salinity, or poor soils, and other characteristics potentially useful for crop improvement.
Gene banks therefore increasingly seek to conserve not only existing agricultural varieties but also wild species related to important crops.
Research described in the source material identifies significant gaps in the conservation of crop wild relatives, including regions and species that remain inadequately represented in either gene banks or protected natural habitats.
Conserving these species both in their natural environments and in gene banks provides complementary forms of protection.
Farmers, Community Seed Banks, and Germplasm Access
Gene-bank conservation is most valuable when genetic resources can be returned to agriculture and society.
Historically, many gene-bank collections were used primarily by researchers and professional plant breeders. New programs increasingly seek to connect national collections directly with farmers.
In Ghana, farmers have evaluated Bambara groundnut obtained from national gene-bank collections.
In Kenya, farmers have evaluated conserved sorghum accessions and identified varieties possessing useful characteristics such as early maturity and resistance to Striga.
Germplasm User Groups provide another approach, allowing farmers to obtain, evaluate, select, multiply, and exchange genetic material maintained in formal collections.
Community seed banks provide a complementary form of conservation. Rather than preserving genetic resources exclusively inside research institutions, community seed banks allow farmers to maintain locally adapted varieties within agricultural communities.
Programs in Africa increasingly connect national gene banks with community seed banks, combining scientific conservation systems with farmer knowledge, local seed multiplication, and continued cultivation.
This relationship is important because genetic diversity preserved only in storage can become disconnected from agricultural practice. Returning conserved material to farms allows diversity to continue evolving under changing environmental and social conditions.
Animal and Livestock Gene Banks
Gene banking also plays an important role in protecting livestock diversity.
Animal gene banks may preserve semen, embryos, blood, tissues, DNA, reproductive cells, and other biological materials.
The United States National Animal Germplasm Program maintains genetic resources from livestock, poultry, aquatic organisms, and other economically important species.
India's National Livestock Gene Bank preserves large quantities of material from indigenous cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, camels, yaks, horses, and other domesticated animals.
European programs coordinate conservation of livestock genetic diversity across national borders.
Animal cryobanks can potentially be used to restore genetic variation that has disappeared from breeding populations, preserve rare breeds, provide insurance against disease outbreaks or disasters, and support future livestock breeding.
Unlike conventional seed banking, however, reconstructing animal populations from frozen material can involve significant biological and logistical challenges.
Wildlife Genetic Banks and the Frozen Zoo
Wildlife conservation has increasingly adopted gene-bank and biobanking technologies.
The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance's Frozen Zoo has preserved living cells and other biological samples from more than a thousand wildlife species during its five decades of operation.
Modern genomic sequencing is making these historical collections increasingly useful. Genetic information obtained from preserved samples can assist conservationists in understanding relationships among individuals, population diversity, and potential breeding strategies.
Researchers are also developing biobanks for reptiles, amphibians, corals, threatened mammals, and other wildlife.
A cheetah sperm bank in Namibia represents one example of reproductive material being preserved as insurance against future population decline.
Researchers are even investigating whether living cells recovered non-invasively from animal feces could eventually become useful additions to conservation biobanks.
These technologies cannot substitute for protecting animals and functioning ecosystems in the wild. However, they may preserve biological possibilities that would otherwise disappear permanently if populations or species become extinct.
Aquatic, Forest, and Microbial Gene Banks
Gene banking extends beyond conventional crops and animals.
Aquatic genetic-resource programs preserve genetic diversity associated with fish, shellfish, algae, seaweed, and other aquatic organisms. Cryopreservation techniques are increasingly being developed for aquatic reproductive materials.
Forest genetic-resource conservation seeks to preserve the genetic variation of tree species facing deforestation, habitat fragmentation, pests, disease, and climate change.
Some tree species produce seeds that cannot survive conventional drying and freezing. Embryo cryopreservation and other specialized approaches may therefore be required to maintain their genetic diversity.
Microbial culture collections function as another form of gene bank. They preserve bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms used in agriculture, medicine, biotechnology, environmental research, and biodiversity science.
Because microorganisms perform essential ecological functions and possess enormous genetic diversity, microbial collections represent an important but sometimes overlooked component of biological conservation.
Challenges Facing Gene Banks
Gene banks face significant long-term challenges.
Collections must be continuously maintained rather than simply placed in storage and forgotten.
Seeds gradually lose viability and must periodically be tested and regenerated. Living collections can be damaged by pests, diseases, extreme weather, equipment failures, or human error. Tissue cultures and cryogenic systems require specialized facilities and trained personnel.
Reviews of national gene banks have identified recurring problems involving inadequate funding, aging infrastructure, incomplete documentation, insufficient safety duplication, regeneration backlogs, and shortages of trained staff.
Large collections can also contain duplicates, mislabeled material, or accessions whose genetic identity is uncertain. Genomic analysis is increasingly helping institutions identify and correct these problems.
Access represents another challenge. Studies of germplasm requests have found that some samples cannot be distributed because seed stocks are too small, disease testing has not been completed, legal restrictions apply, or institutions lack sufficient capacity to respond.
Long-term funding is particularly important because genetic conservation operates across generations. A collection assembled over many decades can be damaged quickly if maintenance is interrupted.
From Storage to Use
The purpose of gene banks is increasingly shifting from simply preserving biological material toward preserving it in forms that can be understood and used.
Genomic characterization, digital databases, standardized documentation, farmer participation, artificial intelligence, international training programs, and improved conservation technology are helping unlock genetic resources that previously remained difficult to access.
Representative core collections can reduce enormous collections to smaller groups containing much of their genetic diversity, allowing researchers to evaluate material more efficiently.
Digital tools can connect genetic information with geographic origins, climate conditions, agricultural characteristics, and breeding records.
Gene-bank material has already contributed to crop improvement, disease resistance, climate adaptation, scientific discovery, and the restoration of traditional agricultural diversity.
The long-term value of many stored accessions cannot be predicted when they are collected. A plant variety considered unimportant today may contain a gene that becomes valuable decades later when a new disease, pest, or environmental condition emerges.
Gene Banks and Biodiversity Conservation
Gene banks are one component of a broader conservation strategy.
They cannot replace natural ecosystems, traditional farming systems, protected areas, wildlife populations, or the continued cultivation of diverse crops.
Instead, ex-situ conservation in gene banks complements in-situ conservation in farms, forests, grasslands, wetlands, reefs, and other ecosystems.
Maintaining genetic resources outside their original environment provides protection against catastrophic loss. Maintaining populations within living ecosystems allows natural selection, ecological interactions, cultural practices, and continuing evolution to persist.
The strongest conservation systems therefore combine both approaches.
Gene banks preserve genetic diversity as biological insurance while living landscapes allow that diversity to continue functioning and evolving.
Conclusion
Gene banks are repositories of biological possibility.
From seeds stored in national collections and safety duplicates beneath the Arctic permafrost to frozen livestock embryos, wildlife cells, microorganisms, tree embryos, and aquatic reproductive material, genetic-resource banking has expanded into a global conservation infrastructure.
Their importance is increasing as agriculture and natural ecosystems confront climate change, habitat destruction, emerging diseases, invasive species, genetic erosion, and other pressures.
The material preserved today may provide traits needed to develop tomorrow's crops, restore lost agricultural varieties, protect livestock diversity, support endangered-species conservation, or answer scientific questions that have not yet been imagined.
The central challenge is therefore not simply to accumulate biological samples. Gene banks must maintain viable collections, document them accurately, protect them through safety duplication, make them accessible to researchers and communities, connect them with modern genomic information, and secure reliable long-term funding.
When linked with farmers, breeders, conservationists, scientists, protected ecosystems, and community seed systems, gene banks provide one of humanity's most important safeguards against the irreversible loss of genetic diversity.
Gene Banks
Global Gene Banks, International Frameworks, and Food Security
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust | August 18, 2026
National gene banks in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia preserve crop diversity that can provide breeders and farmers with options for coping with drought, floods, pests, diseases, and other growing pressures on African agriculture.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust | March 4, 2026
An external review of CIMMYT's maize and wheat gene bank evaluates conservation practices, collection management, access to germplasm, institutional performance, and requirements for long-term sustainability.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust | March 4, 2026
A technical review examines the ILRI forage gene bank's infrastructure, data management, regeneration systems, germplasm health, conservation standards, and readiness for long-term financial support.
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO | 2026
Global monitoring of plant genetic resources shows how millions of crop accessions are conserved in medium- and long-term gene banks as insurance against genetic erosion and future food-security threats.
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO WIEWS | 2026
FAO's WIEWS database allows users to search accession-level information on crop genetic resources conserved by gene banks around the world.
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO WIEWS | 2026
This resource center provides international guidance for seed gene banks, field gene banks, in-vitro conservation, cryopreservation, and conservation of non-orthodox seeds.
CGIAR describes its global Genebanks Accelerator, which conserves hundreds of thousands of accessions while integrating genomics, artificial intelligence, cryopreservation, plant health, and improved data systems.
| CGIAR | CGIAR Genebanks | 2026
The CGIAR genebank network conserves crop diversity spanning cereals, legumes, roots, tubers, bananas, forage plants, trees, and crop wild relatives.
| CGIAR | CGIAR Genebanks | 2026
This overview explains acquisition, seed storage, viability testing, regeneration, safety duplication, cryopreservation, and other core functions required to operate a gene bank.
| CGIAR | CGIAR Genebanks | 2026
CGIAR explains how breeders, researchers, farmers, and other users can request genetic material maintained by its international crop gene banks.
| CGIAR Accelerator on Genebanks | FAO AGRIS | 2026
The 2025 technical report reviews efforts to conserve more than 700,000 crop accessions while strengthening the international system for germplasm preservation and use.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust | 2026
The Genebank Resources on the Web webinar series explores seed longevity, collecting strategies, new technologies, conservation policy, operational efficiency, and other practical challenges facing modern gene banks.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust Annual Report | 2026
Digital gene-bank initiatives expanded Genesys to information on more than four million samples while helping collections adopt software for accession management, viability testing, regeneration, multiplication, and distribution.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust Annual Report | 2026
The Genebank Academy was established to provide worldwide training in gene-bank management, crop conservation, data systems, plant genetic-resource policy, and operational best practices.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust Annual Report | 2026
The Seeds for Resilience initiative strengthened national gene banks in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia through infrastructure improvements, seed drying, safety duplication, training, and policy engagement.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust Annual Report | 2026
Countries are identifying neglected and underutilized crops for improved gene-bank conservation, characterization, breeding, seed-system development, and integration into national food strategies.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust Annual Report | 2026
The Crop Trust reviews international efforts to finance gene banks, establish cryovaults, protect threatened collections, expand digital conservation tools, and connect stored crop diversity with farmers and breeders.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust | August 29, 2025
A long-term funding agreement for the AfricaRice gene bank seeks to permanently safeguard Africa's internationally accessible rice diversity and maintain its availability to breeders and farmers.
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO | 2025
An overview of the state of global plant genetic resources explains the importance of gene banks, field collections, crop wild relatives, safety duplication, and on-farm conservation.
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO | 2014
FAO's Genebank Standards establish internationally recognized practices for conserving, regenerating, documenting, testing, and distributing plant genetic resources.
Svalbard Global Seed Vault and Safety Duplication
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust | June 24, 2026
The Crop Trust reviews major 2025 achievements including Svalbard deposits, regeneration of gene-bank material, crop breeding, and conservation projects.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust | June 17, 2026
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault surpassed 1.4 million stored seed samples as national and international gene banks continued depositing safety duplicates.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust | February 25, 2026
Guatemala and Niger became new Svalbard depositors while olive seed was added to the vault for the first time.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust Annual Report | 2026
The BOLD project helped dozens of gene banks regenerate tens of thousands of seed samples and safety-duplicate large numbers of them at Svalbard.
The official Seed Vault site explains the global system for storing backup copies of seed collections belonging to gene banks around the world.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust | October 22, 2025
Twenty gene banks deposited more than 21,000 samples representing food crops, traditional varieties, and culturally important plant diversity.
| Svalbard Global Seed Vault | Svalbard Global Seed Vault | October 22, 2025
This account documents the October 2025 deposit and the national, regional, and international gene banks that sent crop diversity for Arctic backup storage.
| Svalbard Global Seed Vault | Svalbard Global Seed Vault | June 5, 2025
Seed collections from Kenya, Benin, Korea, the Netherlands, and other countries were added to Svalbard as part of international safety-duplication efforts.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust | June 3, 2025
Fourteen gene banks sent more than 11,000 accessions to Svalbard, including traditional crops closely connected to local food cultures and nutrition.
| External Review Team | Crop Trust | 2025
An independent review examines international crop-conservation financing, gene-bank support, Svalbard, breeding applications, and the broader impact of the Crop Trust.
Gene-Bank Science, Genomics, Cryopreservation, and Crop Breeding
| Seong-Hoon Kim and Inchan Choi | Plants | May 12, 2026
A review examines the role of plant genetic resources in confronting insect pests, diseases, shrinking crop diversity, and environmental change through conservation and improved use of germplasm.
| Anna Elisabeth Backhaus et al. | Nature Genetics | April 21, 2026
Researchers explain how k-mer-based genomic analysis can identify useful alleles and haplotypes hidden within huge gene-bank collections and help breeders select accessions for climate-resilient crop improvement.
| Workie Zegeye et al. | Plants | April 16, 2026
Genomic research on barley and tetraploid wheat is being converted into molecular labeling tools that can help gene banks authenticate samples, identify redundancy, and manage cereal collections more efficiently.
| Sofie Pearson et al. | The Plant Journal | March 14, 2026
Genetic analysis of more than 10,000 cowpea accessions from seven gene banks reveals geographic structure, duplication among collections, and large reservoirs of diversity available for future crop improvement.
| Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT | Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT | 2026
The Digital Genebank project combines genomics, phenotyping, information systems, and genetic analysis to improve conservation and targeted use of beans, cassava, and tropical forages.
| Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research | IPK Gatersleben | 2026
IPK explains the documentation systems and research datasets used to manage and analyze its extensive crop germplasm collections.
| Researchers | Frontiers in Plant Science | 2026
Scientists evaluated more than 1,500 ricebean accessions held in India's National Gene Bank and developed a representative core collection for breeding, genomic research, and trait discovery.
| N. Devabhakthini et al. | Plant Biology | December 29, 2025
Genotyping-by-sequencing of the IPK Medicago collection demonstrates how genomic characterization can reveal population structure and make large gene-bank collections more useful to researchers.
| Quinn Campbell et al. | Nature Climate Change | May 29, 2025
Genomic and climate data from nearly 2,000 sorghum gene-bank accessions were used to identify promising parent material for breeding crops adapted to future climatic conditions.
| Yanjun Zan et al. | Nature Genetics | March 26, 2025
Genome sequencing and phenotyping of more than 5,000 tobacco germplasm accessions demonstrates how entire gene-bank collections can be transformed into resources for studying evolutionary history and complex agricultural traits.
| L. Broschewitz et al. | Scientific Data | January 15, 2025
Genetic profiles of apple cultivars maintained by the German Fruit Genebank provide a resource for identifying duplicates, verifying cultivar identity, understanding relationships, and improving collection management.
| Ahmed Aldow et al. | Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution | 2025
Researchers assess gaps in both gene-bank and in-situ conservation of crop wild relatives across Northeast Africa and identify species and regions needing greater protection.
| Zoë Migicovsky | American Journal of Botany | 2025
This article examines how gene-bank conservation and genomic tools can make wild relatives of perennial fruit crops more useful for breeding climate- and disease-resilient varieties.
| Min-Rui Wang et al. | Acta Horticulturae | 2025
Scientists review cryobanking at China's National Gene Bank of Tropical Crops and the challenges of preserving clonally propagated and tropical plant germplasm.
| Saikat Gantait and Paweł Chmielarz, editors | Springer Nature | 2025
This volume examines seed storage, tissue culture, artificial seeds, cryopreservation, molecular characterization, and other strategies for conserving plant genetic resources.
| Noelle L. Anglin et al. | Plants / Genesys | 2025
The authors explain how large-scale genotyping can uncover duplicate accessions, identify gaps, verify genetic identity, and improve management of gene-bank collections.
| Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT | Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT | 2025
This resource describes laboratory methods used to conserve and evaluate tens of thousands of bean and tropical-forage accessions at the Future Seeds gene bank.
| M. Oppermann | IPK Gatersleben | 2025
IPK provides a downloadable snapshot of passport data documenting the accessions maintained in one of Europe's major plant gene banks.
Whole-genome sequences from hundreds of gene-bank barley accessions help reconstruct the crop's complex domestication history and show how multiple wild populations contributed to modern barley.
Gene-Bank Data, Documentation, and Digital Conservation
| Crop Trust | Genesys | June 10, 2026
New training courses teach gene-bank professionals how to document genetic resources, apply international passport-data standards, and use GGCE and Genesys.
| Crop Trust | Genesys | June 2026
The Genesys advisory committee reviews efforts to broaden gene-bank participation, expand trait information, redesign digital services, and make genetic-resource data easier to use.
| Crop Trust | Genesys | April 21, 2026
The 2026 Genesys workplan calls for additional gene banks to join the platform while improving data quality, multilingual access, germplasm discovery tools, and interoperability.
| Crop Trust | Genesys | April 21, 2026
Gene banks and conservation institutions in Togo and other countries joined Genesys, increasing the amount of national crop-diversity data openly available to researchers.
Genesys provides ongoing reports on gene-bank digitization, new germplasm collections, accession datasets, institutional partnerships, and tools for searching global crop diversity.
Technical documentation explains accession passport data, FAO WIEWS institute codes, standardized descriptors, collection identifiers, and the information architecture underlying global gene-bank databases.
| Crop Trust | Genesys | July 10, 2025
Gene banks added trait datasets, crop subsets, refreshed accession records, and Svalbard safety-duplication information to the global Genesys database during the first half of 2025.
| Crop Trust | Genesys | April 3, 2025
Genesys expanded multilingual access, added artificial-intelligence search capabilities, supported new data providers, and increased online access to gene-bank collections.
| Crop Trust | Genesys | April 3, 2025
A guide explains how breeders and researchers can search millions of accessions, explore trait data, create customized subsets, and request germplasm from participating gene banks.
| Crop Trust | Genesys | March 18, 2025
Training demonstrates how users can search gene-bank passport data, compare accessions, examine traits, download standardized datasets, and request conserved germplasm.
Gene-Bank Management, Funding, and Conservation Challenges
| University of California, Davis | Fruit & Nut Research & Information Center | June 24, 2026
Training materials provide a field tour of the USDA clonal gene bank at Davis and explain management of living genetic resources for Mediterranean fruit and nut crops.
| Christina Walters, Gayle Volk et al. | Crop Science | January 26, 2026
USDA scientists review pollen cryobanking as a method for preserving genetic diversity from fruit, nut, grape, citrus, and other clonally propagated crops.
| Jean Hanson, Nelissa Jamora, and Paula Bramel | Plant Genetic Resources | 2026
Reviews of national gene banks reveal persistent challenges involving unreliable funding, safety duplication, regeneration, documentation, collection quality, and infrastructure.
| Trina Kleist | UC Davis | December 16, 2025
Genetic analysis of historical plum varieties maintained in the USDA clonal repository reconstructs Luther Burbank's breeding work and demonstrates the research value of preserving old cultivars.
| Candice Gardner and Clarice Coyne | CSA News | April 7, 2025
Scientists argue that public gene banks generate large economic and agricultural returns by providing genetic material used to solve crop production problems and develop improved varieties.
| Researchers | Genetic Resources | 2025
An international test of germplasm requests found that some gene-bank accessions could not be obtained because of seed shortages, lack of disease testing, legal restrictions, institutional delays, or absent responses.
| USDA Agricultural Research Service | USDA ARS | 2025
USDA reports on development of GRIN-Global, the information system used to document genetic resources, manage gene-bank operations, process germplasm requests, and provide global public access to collection data.
| USDA Agricultural Research Service | USDA ARS | 2025
USDA gene-bank work includes collecting drought-tolerant wild beans, evaluating germplasm through citizen-science networks, multiplying rare seed, and distributing thousands of accessions to researchers.
| USDA Agricultural Research Service | USDA ARS | 2025
The Plant Exploration and Exchange Office coordinates germplasm collecting, crop vulnerability assessments, wild-relative conservation, and technical guidance for the U.S. gene-bank system.
| U.S. Department of Agriculture | USDA | 2025
USDA budget documents describe the need to reduce backlogs in maintaining and characterizing plant genetic resources and strengthen national germplasm collections for future climate adaptation.
Farmers, Community Seed Banks, and Germplasm Access
| Nicklaus Kruger | Biodiversity Biobanks South Africa | August 18, 2026
South Africa's national gene bank is working with the Gumbu Community Seedbank to combine formal conservation science with farmer-managed preservation of locally adapted crop varieties.
| Henry Frederick Weltzien Rattunde et al. | Plant Genetic Resources | March 26, 2026
Researchers argue that national gene banks can become active agents of agricultural diversification by connecting conserved crop varieties directly with farmers and local seed systems.
| Researchers | Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution | January 22, 2026
Pigeon pea collected across Nigeria and supplemented with material from African gene banks was evaluated alongside farmer preferences to identify traits useful for climate-smart breeding.
| Kenya News Agency | MyGov Kenya | January 13, 2026
Community seed banks in Kenya conserve indigenous crop varieties, multiply scarce seed, return planting material to farmers, and maintain locally adapted agricultural diversity.
| Peterson Wambugu et al. | Plant Genetic Resources | 2026
Kenyan farmers evaluated sorghum from the national gene bank and identified accessions with preferred characteristics including early maturity and resistance to the parasitic weed Striga.
| Crop Trust | Genesys | November 13, 2025
Gene-bank staff from Africa, Central Asia, and CGIAR institutions received hands-on training in digital accession management and international genetic-resource information systems.
| Crop Trust | Crop Trust | September 16, 2025
Farmers in Ghana are testing Bambara groundnut diversity obtained directly from the national gene bank, demonstrating how conserved germplasm can move from storage back into farmers' fields.
| Matt Heaton et al. | Plant Genetic Resources | September 1, 2025
Germplasm User Groups provide a mechanism through which farmers can obtain, evaluate, select, multiply, and exchange genetic diversity that had previously remained largely inaccessible inside national gene banks.
| Crop Trust | Genesys | July 2, 2025
Gene-bank professionals from more than twenty African countries gathered for intensive training in digital collection management, standardized passport data, GGCE, and Genesys.
| Researchers | Communications Biology | 2025
Genetic analysis of Southern African cowpea landraces, including Mozambique's national gene-bank collection, identified genetic variation potentially useful for adaptation to hotter and drier climates.
International Crop Collections and CGIAR Gene Banks
The article connects international gene banks with community seed banks and demonstrates how conserved crop diversity can benefit farmers, nutrition, and climate resilience.
| Sylvia Pineda | Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT | March 25, 2026
Banana germplasm was transferred between international gene-bank collections in Belgium and Colombia to strengthen conservation of disease resistance, drought tolerance, nutrition, and breeding diversity.
| World Vegetable Center | WorldVeg | March 23, 2026
WorldVeg reports that more than 90 percent of its international vegetable germplasm collection has now been safety-duplicated in Svalbard.
| Jacobo Arango et al. | Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT | January 26, 2026
Genetic resources from Future Seeds helped researchers identify forage plants suitable for green-manure systems and changing agricultural conditions in China.
| Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT | Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT | 2026
Future Seeds in Colombia combines physical gene-bank storage with genomics, digital phenotyping, cryopreservation, and data analysis to conserve beans, cassava, and tropical forages.
| Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT | Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT | 2026
The Alliance describes its Future Seeds facility and International Musa Germplasm Transit Centre, including seed, tissue-culture, field, and cryogenic conservation.
| Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT | Alliance Annual Report | 2026
Thousands of cassava accessions stored at Future Seeds are being screened as researchers search for natural resistance to destructive witches' broom disease.
| Africa Rice Center | Genesys | 2026
AfricaRice conserves more than 20,000 rice accessions, including African rice and wild species that provide important genetic material for African crop improvement.
| Bioversity International Musa Germplasm Transit Centre | Genesys | 2026
The International Musa Germplasm Transit Centre maintains the world's largest collection of bananas and plantains using in-vitro and cryogenic conservation.
| International Center for Tropical Agriculture | Genesys | 2026
CIAT's Colombian gene bank holds major global collections of beans, cassava, and tropical forages, including thousands of landraces and crop wild relatives.
| International Potato Center | CIP | 2026
CIP's gene bank conserves potato, sweetpotato, and Andean root and tuber diversity using seed storage, tissue culture, cryopreservation, and other methods.
| International Potato Center | CIP | 2026
The cultivated sweetpotato collection contains thousands of accessions characterized through morphology, molecular markers, and other genetic information.
| International Potato Center | CIP | 2026
CIP explains how wild sweetpotato relatives are stored, regenerated, characterized, and safety-duplicated to preserve genetic variation useful for crop improvement.
| International Potato Center | CIP | 2026
CIP operates one of the world's largest in-vitro gene banks, using tissue culture to maintain thousands of potato, sweetpotato, and Andean-root accessions.
| International Potato Center | CIP | 2026
A conservation project collects threatened African sweetpotato landraces, cleans them of disease, preserves them in the gene bank, and returns healthy material to farming communities.
| International Potato Center | CIP | 2026
CIP's repatriation program returns traditional potato varieties from gene-bank collections to Andean communities where agricultural diversity has been lost.
| International Potato Center | CIP | 2026
Scientists developed a small representative collection capturing broad sweetpotato genetic diversity so researchers can evaluate gene-bank material more efficiently.
| International Rice Research Institute | IRRI | 2026
The International Rice Genebank dashboard provides information on the composition, geographic origins, distribution, and use of the world's largest rice genetic-resource collection.
| International Rice Research Institute | Genesys | 2026
Genesys documents the International Rice Genebank's enormous collection of cultivated rice, traditional varieties, breeding material, and wild relatives.
| International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics | Genesys | 2026
The ICRISAT gene bank preserves more than one hundred thousand accessions of crops particularly important to farming in semi-arid regions.
| International Livestock Research Institute | ILRI | 2026
ILRI's Ethiopian forage gene bank conserves thousands of grasses, legumes, fodder trees, and related species used for livestock production and climate adaptation.
| International Institute of Tropical Agriculture | Genesys | 2026
IITA conserves important African food crops including cowpea, cassava, yam, Bambara groundnut, soybean, maize, sorghum, and banana using seed, field, in-vitro, and cryogenic storage.
| AfricaRice | AfricaRice | August 28, 2025
Long-term financing for the AfricaRice gene bank is intended to ensure permanent conservation and availability of Africa's largest internationally accessible rice collection.
| John Damien Platten, Amelia Henry, and Myrtel Valenzuela | Rice Today | April 24, 2025
The Trait Development Pipeline is designed to connect rice diversity stored in the gene bank with breeding programs developing future varieties.
| M. Gatto et al. | International Potato Center | 2025
Research in Kenya shows how modern potato varieties and breeding lines can trace substantial portions of their ancestry to genetic resources conserved by CIP.
| International Rice Research Institute | Rice Today | 2025
IRRI explains how more than 130,000 rice accessions provide traits for yield, nutrition, pest resistance, climate adaptation, and other breeding objectives.
| Meki Shehabu Muktar, Alemayehu Teressa Negawo, and Chris S. Jones | Genesys | 2025
A genetically representative subset of ILRI's cowpea holdings was created to make diverse forage and dual-purpose material easier for researchers and breeders to evaluate.
| World Vegetable Center | WorldVeg | May 31, 2024
Thousands of vegetable accessions representing more than a hundred species were shipped from WorldVeg to Svalbard as part of systematic backup of its global collection.
| International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics | ICRISAT | 2022
ICRISAT describes a collection of sorghum, millets, chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, and other dryland crops that has supplied germplasm to researchers worldwide.
| Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT | Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT | 2021
A virtual tour explains how international collections of beans, cassava, forages, and bananas are preserved and distributed as global public goods.
| International Rice Research Institute | IRRI | 2018
IRRI explains how rice germplasm preserved in its gene bank is distributed internationally for research, breeding, and training.
National and Regional Plant Gene Banks
| The Times | The Times | August 24, 2026
A report on the UK Vegetable Genebank explains how frozen vegetable seeds and wild relatives could provide traits needed to cope with climate change, pests, and future agricultural threats.
| Christelle Rabil | Genesys | January 19, 2026
Genesys reports that its global portal documented more than four million accessions from national, regional, and international gene banks by the end of 2025.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | 2026
The Millennium Seed Bank describes its worldwide effort to safeguard threatened, endemic, economically useful, climate-vulnerable, and crop-related wild plants.
| University of Warwick | Warwick Crop Centre | 2026
The UK Vegetable Genebank maintains approximately 14,000 seed samples representing vegetables, landraces, and crop wild relatives used by breeders and researchers.
| European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources | ECPGR | 2026
European experts report on crop-wild-relative collecting, genetic reserves, gene-bank deposits, and efforts to coordinate in-situ and ex-situ conservation.
| Centre for Plant Diversity | Genesys | 2026
Hungary's Centre for Plant Diversity conserves tens of thousands of crop accessions including wheat, beans, barley, maize, oats, vegetables, and other genetic resources.
| Genetic Resources Research Institute | Genesys | 2026
Kenya's national genetic-resources institute maintains tens of thousands of accessions including sorghum, beans, finger millet, maize, cowpea, and other crops.
| National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology | Genesys | 2026
Nigeria's national gene bank conserves sorghum, pearl millet, cowpea, maize, groundnut, vegetables, and other locally important crop diversity.
| Plant Genetic Resources Research Institute | Genesys | 2026
Ghana's PGRRI conserves crop, medicinal, forest, fruit, root, tuber, vegetable, and wild plant genetic resources through seed, field, and in-vitro collections.
| National Agriculture Research Institute | Genesys | 2026
Papua New Guinea's national agricultural research system safeguards traditional sweetpotato genetic resources, including material duplicated internationally.
| Unité de Génétique, Biotechnologie et Science des Semences | Genesys | 2026
Benin's genetic-resource collection includes thousands of local landraces and other crop accessions, with part of the collection backed up in Svalbard.
| Embrapa Recursos Genéticos e Biotecnologia | Genesys | 2026
Brazil's Embrapa genetic-resources system preserves major collections of rice, barley, beans, soybean, wheat, and numerous other agricultural species.
| Embrapa Amazônia Ocidental | Genesys | 2026
This Amazonian field gene bank conserves cassava, guaraná, oil palm, American oil palm, and other tropical genetic resources.
| Embrapa Cerrados | Genesys | 2026
Embrapa Cerrados maintains genetic resources of forage plants, rubber, cassava, passionfruit, Stylosanthes, and other crops adapted to Brazil's savanna region.
| Embrapa Hortaliças | Genesys | 2026
Brazil's vegetable germplasm collection includes squash, peppers, tomatoes, sweetpotatoes, peas, and thousands of other horticultural accessions.
| Embrapa Milho e Sorgo | Genesys | 2026
Embrapa's maize and sorghum collections conserve thousands of accessions, including many traditional landraces and material safety-duplicated in Svalbard.
| International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center | Genesys | 2026
CIMMYT's Mexican gene bank conserves more than 200,000 accessions dominated by wheat, maize, barley, landraces, breeding material, and crop wild relatives.
| National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources | Genesys | 2026
India's National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources is the country's central institution for collecting, conserving, characterizing, documenting, and facilitating use of plant germplasm.
| Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees | Genesys | 2026
Fiji's CePaCT is the Pacific region's principal gene bank for crops and trees and maintains important in-vitro collections including globally significant taro diversity.
| Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agraria | Genesys | 2026
Peru's agricultural research system conserves genetic resources including quinoa, peppers, fruits, and other crops that represent the country's exceptional agricultural biodiversity.
| Centre Régional de la Recherche Agronomique de Settat | Genesys | 2026
Morocco's national gene-bank collection includes barley, wheat, faba bean, chickpea, lentil, oats, forage species, and other crops adapted to dry Mediterranean environments.
| Departamento Nacional de Recursos Fitogenéticos | Genesys | 2026
Ecuador's national plant genetic-resource program maintains tens of thousands of accessions while combining ex-situ conservation with work involving farmers, breeders, and scientists.
| International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas | Genesys | 2026
ICARDA's collection contains extensive barley, wheat, food-legume, forage, crop-wild-relative, and Rhizobium diversity adapted to dryland agricultural systems.
| International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas | Genesys | 2026
ICARDA's Lebanon-based gene-bank operations help conserve and distribute dryland crop genetic resources after collections were reconstructed from safety duplicates following disruption in Syria.
| Potato Research Institute Havlíčkův Brod | Genesys | 2026
The Czech potato gene bank maintains thousands of potato accessions using in-vitro culture, field collections, seed storage, and cryopreservation.
| C.M. Rick Tomato Genetics Resource Center | Genesys | 2026
The University of California's tomato genetic-resource collection maintains cultivated tomatoes, wild relatives, genetic stocks, and research material important for breeding and biological research.
| Centro Nacional de Recursos Fitogenéticos | Genesys | 2026
Spain's national plant genetic-resource center conserves major collections of barley, wheat, maize, beans, chickpeas, rye, and other traditional agricultural material.
| Banco Português de Germoplasma Vegetal | Genesys | 2026
Portugal's plant germplasm bank safeguards tens of thousands of accessions, particularly maize, beans, wheat, rice, rye, lupins, and other crops important to Iberian agriculture.
| Estación Experimental La Mayora | Genesys | 2026
This Spanish collection maintains germplasm of melon, tomato, cherimoya, tomatillo, and related crops, providing genetic resources for horticultural research and breeding.
The Basque agricultural research institute maintains seed, field, and in-vitro genetic-resource collections and participates in Spain's broader plant conservation network.
| IFAPA Centro Alameda del Obispo | Genesys | 2026
Andalusia's agricultural research collections conserve extensive olive, chickpea, faba bean, and other Mediterranean crop germplasm.
| IPK Potato Collection Gross Lüsewitz | Genesys | 2026
Germany's IPK potato collection preserves thousands of accessions through seed, field, in-vitro, and cryogenic methods and maintains safety duplicates of significant material.
| ICRISAT | ICRISAT Regional Genebank | 2026
ICRISAT's Bulawayo regional gene bank preserves thousands of sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet, and chickpea accessions for Southern African crop improvement and food security.
| National Agriculture and Food Research Organization | NARO | 2026
Japan's Genetic Resources Center operates the country's agricultural gene-bank system and conserves plant, animal, and microbial resources for scientific and agricultural use.
| USDA Agricultural Research Service | USDA ARS | 2026
The USDA Plant Genetic Resources Unit in Geneva, New York maintains thousands of apple, grape, cherry, vegetable, hemp, and related germplasm accessions.
| USDA Agricultural Research Service | GRIN | 2026
The U.S. National Plant Germplasm System consists of a distributed network of repositories specializing in grains, fruits, vegetables, forage crops, ornamentals, tropical crops, nuts, and crop wild relatives.
| USDA Agricultural Research Service | USDA ARS | 2026
USDA's long-term strategic plan seeks to improve germplasm health, backup security, characterization, collection expansion, data quality, and availability throughout the National Plant Germplasm System.
| USDA Agricultural Research Service | USDA Scientific Discoveries | 2026
The U.S. gene-bank network contains hundreds of thousands of accessions representing thousands of plant species and provides genetic material for crop research and breeding around the world.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | October 20, 2025
Kew marks 25 years of the Millennium Seed Bank, which has accumulated billions of seeds representing tens of thousands of wild plant species.
| National Agriculture and Food Research Organization | NARO | July 18, 2025
Japan temporarily suspended germplasm distribution while replacing its gene-bank information system, illustrating the dependence of modern genetic-resource conservation on digital infrastructure.
| Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | Kew | March 24, 2025
Kew highlights the science and conservation work of the Millennium Seed Bank through a program exploring seed diversity, resilience, and biodiversity loss.
| NordGen | Nordic Genetic Resource Center | February 25, 2025
Sudanese gene-bank workers rescued crop seeds during civil conflict and arranged for the material to be safely deposited in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
| University of Warwick | University of Warwick | 2025
Hundreds of samples from the UK Vegetable Genebank were transferred to Svalbard to provide an additional security backup for important vegetable diversity.
| Grains Research and Development Corporation | GRDC | 2025
Australia's strategic gene-bank partnership seeks to combine conserved grain diversity with large-scale genotyping to make genetic resources more useful to plant breeders.
| Botanic Gardens Conservation International | BGjournal | 2025
This special issue examines seed banking as a tool for biodiversity conservation, habitat restoration, species recovery, and long-term preservation of threatened plants.
| Botanic Gardens Conservation International | BGjournal | 2025
A Kenya case study describes community-based native tree seed banking as a combined strategy for conservation, restoration, livelihoods, and preservation of genetic diversity.
| European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources | ECPGR | 2025
ECPGR outlines Europe's 2024–2028 priorities, including gene-bank collaboration, genetic-resource databases, crop evaluation networks, and conservation of crop wild relatives.
| Institute of Plant Breeding-National Plant Genetic Resources Laboratory | Genesys | 2025
The Philippines' national collection includes mungbean, cowpea, pigeonpea, cassava, maize, and other crops important to local food production.
| Embrapa Trigo | Genesys | 2025
Embrapa's wheat collection conserves bread wheat, durum wheat, barley, oats, rye, Aegilops species, synthetic wheats, and other cereal genetic resources.
| NordGen | Nordic Genetic Resource Center | 2024
NordGen describes a major international Svalbard deposit involving gene banks from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific.
| Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada | Government of Canada | 2022
Plant Gene Resources of Canada safeguards seed, potato, fruit, and other agricultural genetic resources used for crop breeding, scientific research, and biodiversity conservation.
Animal and Livestock Gene Banks
| Terry Sim | Beef Central | August 12, 2026
A previously unreleased CSIRO study proposed an Australian livestock gene bank as insurance against disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and irreversible losses of valuable animal genetics.
| USDA Agricultural Research Service | National Animal Germplasm Program | 2026
The U.S. animal gene bank preserves semen, embryos, blood, tissues, and genomic information from livestock, poultry, aquatic animals, and insects.
| ICAR-National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources | ICAR-NBAGR | 2026
India's livestock DNA bank preserves genomic DNA representing indigenous cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry, horses, camels, yaks, and other domesticated animals.
| ICAR-National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources | ICAR-NBAGR | 2026
India's National Livestock Gene Bank cryopreserves hundreds of thousands of semen doses from indigenous cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, camels, yaks, and equines.
| European Regional Focal Point for Animal Genetic Resources | ERFP | 2026
European countries coordinate conservation, sustainable use, monitoring, and policy for livestock genetic diversity through a regional animal-genetic-resources network.
Simulation research examines how stored genetic material can be reintroduced into livestock populations to preserve diversity or redirect breeding programs.
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO | 2026
FAO is preparing a new global assessment of livestock genetic diversity covering conservation, cryobanking, genomics, breeding programs, climate adaptation, and policy.
| ReDBioLab | University of Milan | 2026
The SUPERNOVA project will expand reproductive biotechnology and cryobanking of livestock genetic resources in Italy and strengthen European conservation capacity.
| CRB-Anim | French National Research Infrastructure | 2026
France's animal biological resource network conserves, characterizes, and distributes livestock and other animal genetic material for agriculture, research, and biodiversity conservation.
| Alicia Jacques et al. | INRAE Productions Animales | October 29, 2025
Cryopreserved livestock resources can be used to restore lost variation, slow genetic erosion, and maintain rare or historically important animal populations.
| R.P.M.A. Crooijmans et al. | Animal Genetics | September 18, 2025
Researchers developed a multispecies SNP array to characterize cattle, sheep, goat, and pig genetic material held in European livestock gene banks.
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO | Historical
FAO discusses the development of regional animal genetic-resource databases and cryogenic gene banks as tools for protecting threatened livestock breeds.
Wildlife, Forest, Aquatic, and Microbial Gene Banks
| San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance | San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance | August 17, 2026
A new partnership will connect Frozen Zoo biological samples with global wildlife health and population records, creating an integrated system for conservation biobanking.
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO | May 2026
International experts considered climate change, conservation systems, information sharing, and national strategies for preserving forest genetic resources.
| San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance | San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance | February 3, 2026
The Frozen Zoo is being genomically sequenced to connect decades of preserved wildlife cells with modern genetics and improve conservation planning for threatened species.
| Metsähallitus | Metsähallitus Parks & Wildlife Finland | 2026
Finland is developing a wild forest reindeer gene bank that will preserve gametes and embryos as a long-term genetic safeguard for the threatened subspecies.
| Reptilia | Reptilia Conservation Program | 2026
Reptilia is preserving DNA, tissues, and living cells from threatened reptiles and amphibians as genetic insurance against population collapse and extinction.
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO | 2026
FAO's aquatic genetic-resource program supports conservation and responsible use of genetic diversity in farmed and wild fish, shellfish, algae, and other aquatic organisms.
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO | 2026
New technical guidance explains how cryopreservation and other in-vitro methods can be used to establish gene banks for fish, shellfish, seaweed, and microalgae.
| Researchers | Cryobiology | 2026
Research on the threatened Atlantic Forest palm Euterpe edulis shows how embryo cryopreservation may allow species with desiccation-sensitive seeds to be conserved in gene banks.
| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | FAO | December 18, 2025
FAO's revised global plan for forest genetic resources calls for stronger in-situ and ex-situ conservation, improved genetic information, and greater protection of tree diversity.
| Gerald Imray | Associated Press | December 4, 2025
A long-running cheetah sperm bank in Namibia preserves genetic material that could someday help maintain diversity or support reproduction if wild populations become critically depleted.
| San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance | San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance | May 15, 2025
The Frozen Zoo marks 50 years of preserving living cells, reproductive material, and other samples from more than a thousand wildlife species for future conservation applications.
| Nicola Davis | The Guardian | March 16, 2025
Researchers are exploring whether living cells recovered non-invasively from animal feces could be frozen and incorporated into wildlife genetic-resource banks.
| Nelson Lima et al. | Microbiology Society | 2025
Microbial culture collections function as gene banks for bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms and support biotechnology, agriculture, medicine, biodiversity research, and environmental science.
| Researchers | Theriogenology Wild | 2025
A systematic review examines how wildlife cryobanks should prioritize species, individuals, genetic diversity, and sample types when resources for conservation banking are limited.
| Researchers | Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution | 2025
Coral conservationists in the Mexican Caribbean are cryopreserving sperm and other reproductive material to preserve reef genetic diversity for future restoration efforts.
