Dr. Hsu's Frozen Zoo

Most zoos with animals like Tasmanian rat kangaroos, white dolphins, snow leopards, cheetahs and a rare Indian barking deer would be swamped with visitors. Cell Biologist T.C. Hsu (pronounced shoe) has assembled more than 300 rare species in a collection that rivals New York's huge Bronx Zoo; but it draws no crowds. Dr. Hsu's pets are all in test tubes, stored in steel bins at the University of Texas' M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute.

Each test tube, embedded in dry ice, contains between 60 and 100 million cells of an individual species, usually grown from bits of skin tissue. Most of the samples come from animals Hsu believes are doomed to extinction. When that happens, their genes will be lost. Hsu's hope is that scientists of the future will be able to use the genetic "codes" locked in the cells of each species to reconstitute the original animals.

China-born Dr. Hsu, whose more conventional field is the study of chromosome behavior, concedes that this notion is still close to science fiction. But he can point out that a complete carrot plant has indeed been grown from a single carrot cell. At any rate, other scientists are becoming interested; some have even risked life and limb to contribute to his frozen zoo.

A few years ago, Navy health officers came under fire while trying to take skin samples from a rare Vietnamese mole. On another occasion, a California biologist set out for a remote and desolate island off Southern California, which Hsu had heard was the only habitat of a certain rodent. The biologist's boat sank, and he was marooned for three days. He fed himself on bait he had brought for the rodents.

Says Hsu: "If through my work children two centuries hence may be able to see extinct species live again, I feel that I will have left a worthwhile legacy."

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