Agence France-PresseFebruary 17, 2021 6:42:08 PM IST
Russian state laboratory Vektor announced Tuesday that it was launching an investigation into prehistoric viruses by analyzing animal remains recovered from melted permafrost. The Siberia-based laboratory said in a statement that the goal of the project was to identify paleoviruses and conduct advanced research on the evolution of the virus. The collaborative research with the University of Yakutsk began with an analysis of tissues taken from a prehistoric horse believed to be at least 4,500 years old. Vektor said the remains were discovered in 2009 in Yakutia, a vast region of Siberia where remains of Paleolithic animals, including mammoths, are regularly discovered.
Russian state laboratory Vektor said it will launch an investigation into prehistoric viruses by analyzing animal remains recovered from melted permafrost to identify paleoviruses and conduct advanced research on the evolution of the virus.
The researchers said they would investigate the remains of mammoths, elk, dogs, partridges, rodents, hares and other prehistoric animals.
Maxim Cheprasov, director of the laboratory at the Mammoth Museum at Yakutsk University, said in a press release that the recovered animals had already undergone bacterial studies.
But he added: “We are conducting studies on paleovirus for the first time.”
Former center for the development of biological weapons in Soviet times, the Vektor laboratory in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia is one of only two facilities in the world to store the smallpox virus.
Vektor has developed a coronavirus vaccine, EpiVacCorona, which was licensed in October in Russia and is scheduled to begin mass production later this month.
Scientists say the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the world average, endangering local wildlife and releasing stored carbon in melting permafrost.
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