A new, dedicated cryogenic facility is due to be built at the Canadian Museum of Nature under a $4m donation.
The country’s national museum of natural history and sciences has received the multi-million-dollar gift from the Vancouver-based Ross Beaty family in order to enhance the museum’s national research and collection efforts focused on species discovery.
Half of the $4m donation will support a national cryogenic facility to curate tissue samples and genetic materials. The site will include an examination room and large dewars filled with liquid nitrogen to house tissue samples and genetic materials.
The grant will also support a new post-doctoral fellowship on species at risk and a programme to digitise the museum’s extensive collection of Arctic specimens.
Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage, stated, “This donation will enable the museum to further protect and promote our unique natural heritage and diversity, allowing for a meaningful engagement with nature’s past, present and future.”
The new site, dubbed the Beaty Centre for Species Discovery, will be based at the museum’s national research and collections facility, the Natural Heritage Campus, in Gatineau, Quebec.