MOSCOW, December 25. /TASS/. A research project titled Noah's Ark will be implemented in the Research and Technology Valley of Moscow Lomonosov State University, the university's President, Dr. Viktor Sadovnichy told a news conference on Thursday.
Noah's Ark will cost a billion rubles ($ 19.2 million) and will contain data on all the live species in world history.
"If this project is realized, it will mean a thrust forward in the history of Russian science, as this will be the first country in the world to create a true Noah's Ark," Dr. Sadovnichy said. "In envisions a depository, or a databank on all the living species on the Earth."
Information will cover both the species that are vanishing and the ones that are thriving, he said.
The depository will be built in the Research and Technology Valley that will be located on the University's new compound.
"It will have the facilities for cryogenic storage of the cell material samples with an opportunity to reproduce them in the future," Dr. Sadovnichy said. "It will also have information systems because there's no need to keep absolutely everything in test tubes."
"A system that will unite this bank with other similar banks in Russia and, quite possibly, abroad will be set up," he said.
Moscow Lomonosov State University's Research and Technology Valley is to be built by 2018. It is supposed to occupy an area of almost 430,000 sq meters, or 43 hectares.