Wiktionary
n. (context genetics English) A repository for genetic material
Wikipedia
Gene banks are a type of biorepository which preserve genetic material. For plants, this could be by freezing cuttings from the plant, or stocking the seeds (e.g. in a seedbank). For animals, this is the freezing of sperm and eggs in zoological freezers until further need. With corals, fragments are taken which are stored in water tanks under controlled conditions. Gene banks Plant genetic material in a 'gene bank' is preserved at -196° Celsius in Liquid Nitrogen as mature seed (dry).
In plants, it is possible to unfreeze the material and propagate it, however, in animals, a living female is required for artificial insemination. While it is often difficult to use frozen animal sperm and eggs, there are many examples of it being done successfully.
In an effort to conserve agricultural biodiversity, gene banks are used to store and conserve the plant genetic resources of major crop plants and their crop wild relatives. There are many gene banks all over the world, with the Svalbard Global Seed Vault being probably the most famous one.
GeneBank is listed in the Registry of Research Data Repositories re3data.org.
The database of the largest gene banks in the world can be queried via a common website, Genesys.
Usage examples of "gene bank".
We were to deliver the copies of the gene bank to each of the eight satrap governors upon the occasion of her funeral, which they would be certain to all attend together.
But you who worry so much about our precious genetic heritage and our irreplaceable instruments of embryo nurture might stop and think a little about the logic of risking one of the two people on board who have a thorough understanding of how to operate our gene bank.
We began to know last night, when the haut Nadina failed to return with her gene bank.