Russian lab tries to reawaken 'zombie virus' found in frozen woolly mammoth

Russian Vector Lab extracts Stone Age viruses from woolly mammoths for experimentation, but experts fear leak could trigger another catastrophic pandemic

Scientists from the Russian Vector Laboratory extract Stone Age viruses (

Image: Nina Sleptsova / NEFU Press Service)

Scientists have raised alarm by digging up the bodies of long-dead mammals in an effort to 'wake up' Stone Age viruses.

Pathogens are believed to have been preserved for millennia in the frozen remains of woolly mammoths and other extinct species in northeastern Siberia.

Such prehistoric "paleoviruses" are not familiar to anything that inhabits Earth today.

The project is conducted by the Russian State Research Center for Virology and Biotechnology, known as Vector.

It aims to extract cellular material containing diseases for laboratory experiments.

One branch of the research center is a former bioweapons facility that in April 1979 inadvertently released anthrax spores.

Woolly mammoths became extinct thousands of years ago (

Picture:

Getty Images)

The outbreak killed at least 66 people, but Soviet authorities denied the incident ever happened.

In 2004, meanwhile, a researcher accidentally contracted Ebola by pricking herself with a needle containing the virus.

Vector currently hosts 59 maximum-security bio-labs around the world.

International experts, including Jean-Michel Claverie, are concerned about the impact of new experiments.