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  • WHERE I WORK

Ultracold storage ensures a future for endangered plants

Plant scientist Liang Lin develops cryopreservation technology to store seeds and plant tissues at liquid-nitrogen temperature to conserve biodiversity.
  1. Yvaine Ye

    1. Yvaine Ye is a science journalist in Shanghai, China.

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Lin Liang wearing a protective visor, overalls and think gloves lifts seed samples from a cyrogenic storage tank

Liang Lin is a plant scientist at the Kunming Institute of Botany, Yunnan, China. Credit: Li Lianyi

Here at the Germplasm Bank of Wild Species of China at the Kunming Institute of Botany, we want to preserve the seeds of as many wild plants as possible from across China’s vast land area. I work on developing the best techniques to freeze plant seeds and tissues at ultracold temperatures, to maintain their viability for years. The idea is that if we plant these seeds again in hundreds of years, a plant will grow.

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Nature 604, 590 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01049-8

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