San Diego Zoo is planning to use frozen cells of dead animals in an attempt to bring endangered species back from the brink of extinction, the Daily Telegraph is reporting.

The Jurassic Park-style experiments are the collaboration of researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla and the zoo, who will create stem cells from a dead drill monkey, an endangered species native to Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and Cameroon.

The cells will then be persuaded to become sperm and egg cells and will be implanted into the womb of another monkey, and will hopefully form.

A viable foetus. An extinct animal has already been bought to life, though the experiment was not a total success. The Pyrenean ibex was cloned using skin samples and the eggs of a domestic goat, though the animal died shortly after birth.

Another animal that is being sought back from extinction is the European auroch, a type of wild cattle that inhabited Europe, until getting extinct 400 years ago. The Nazis famously tried to have them resurrected, but were unsuccessful in their efforts.There are also plans to recover intact DNA from frozen woolly mammoths, although this has not so far been successful.