New Noah's Ark with frozen DNA

A Russian university is planning to create a 'Noah's Ark' consisting of the frozen DNA of every creature that has ever lived.

Moscow State University has received the country's largest-ever scientific grant to embark on the project, which is scheduled to be completed by 2018 and will be based in a 430sq km site on campus.

The institute, which has received 1billion rubles (£12.6million) to help get it off the ground, aims to cryogenically freeze and store cells which are capable of reproducing.

Viktor Sadivnichy, the university's rector, likened the gigantic project to a modern-day 'Noah's Ark'.

He explained: “It will involve the creation of a depository - a databank for the storing of every living thing on Earth, including not only living, but disappearing and distinct organisms.

“It will also contain information systems. If it's realised, this will be a leap in Russian history as the first nation to create an actual Noah's Ark of sorts.”

The announcement marks the latest, and most ambitious, of the world's DNA banks which have increased in numbers in the past decade following breakthroughs in technology and growing concern about species extinction.

Britain also maintains the Frozen Ark Project, which is run by a consortium of biological societies, zoos, museums and research facilities.

It holds a remarkable 28,604 frozen DNA samples, of which more than 7,000 are from species on the 'red list' of endangered animals.

This includes the Spiny Lobster, the Channel Islands Fox, the Bonefish, the Indiana Bat and Cat's Paw Coral.

But Russia's historic Noah's Ark project is not the first of its kind for the country - a storage facility in the remote Siberian wilderness aims to use the natural cold of Siberia's thick permafrost to preserve seed and plant samples for up to 100 years.