Shanghai company launches world’s first gene bank into space

According to DSPACE, this project could prove vital in the future for interstellar migration and gene regeneration.

As the population of humankind continues to increase at unprecedented rates, earth science experts believe that the planet will become crowded and inhabitable within four hundred years. Depletion of the earth’s resources is also expected to bring about various conflicts.

Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX – a US aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company – believes the answer to the future of humankind can be found in outer space.

At the 67th annual International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2016, Musk announced a plan to transport one million people to Mars, sparking discussion about interstellar migration.

In September, Feng Lun, the founder of DSPACE, presented the project to more than 100 guests from around the world at the Shanghai Summit of Abundance360.

Earlier in August, a team of DSPACE project nurses collected 20ml of blood from eight volunteers which was contained in special vacuum tubes and transported by a biological cold chain company to the China National Gene Bank. Scientists from the National Gene Bank then used magnetic beads to extract their genes before preserving them with GLPs.

According to DSPACE, the DSB-01 can maintain a safe orbit for a maximum of 975 years.