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Funds will support efforts to improve methods to preserve “exceptional plants”

CINCINNATI, OH (October 1, 2026) – The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is excited to announce that its Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) has been awarded a three-year Institute of Museum & Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grant to further the science of plant conservation using biotechnological tools. This funding will allow the Plant Research Division to ensure the safety of collections of exceptional plant species, which are species that can’t be banked using conventional seed-banking.

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“Cryopreservation, which is a method of cooling and preserving plant tissue using liquid nitrogen, is regarded as the most effective alternative method for long-term storage of these exceptional species,” said Dr. Megan Philpott, director of CREW’s Exceptional Plant Signature Project. “CREW’s Frozen Garden is one of the oldest and most diverse collections of cryopreserved wild plant species, with a particular focus on preserving oak species for future generations.” (Learn more about the Exceptional Plant Signature Project and how CREW scientists have been using cryobiotechnology to Save Species With Science.)

CREW’s Plant Research Division will continue research into conserving oaks using cryobiotechnology. All oak species are exceptional plants, and one of the best ways to cryopreserve and protect them long-term starts with growing them in test tubes using tissue culture. CREW will investigate best practices in germinating acorns for ex situ (outside of natural environment) collections and will use the resulting trees to start tissue culture collections for cryopreservation. By partnering with a variety of botanic gardens and arboreta across the United States to collect acorns, they will also determine how the environment of the mother tree may affect the success of the acorns in germination, tissue culture, and cryopreservation. Not only will this grant support critical research efforts to improve and expand conservation protocols and foundational biological knowledge about exceptional plant species, but it will also facilitate collaboration between the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden and other national leaders in the field of cryopreservation. CREW will partner with three other U.S. cryobanks: Atlanta Botanical Garden, The Huntington in San Marino, and the Lyon Arboretum in Honolulu to test methods of establishing a network of backup cryo-collections to ensure that U.S. collections are safe from both environmental and man-made threats for years to come.

This grant will enable CREW to add tools to its Exceptional Plant Conservation Network, a free online resource of tools and information on conserving exceptional plants, to help practitioners around the globe protect these threatened species. A newly established Comparative Cryopreservation Database will allow researchers to compare cryopreservation methods across species to streamline the development of protocols for ex situ plant conservation.  These free online tools will help researchers around the world protect rare and threatened exceptional species using cutting-edge biotechnological methods.