They wear full protective suits including gloves, masks, and disposable clothing.

All equipment is decontaminated before use.

The architecture of the space is designed to prevent outside air from entering without filtration.

The goal is to reduce the environmental DNA load to a level where ancient DNA — which will always be in the minority relative to modern contamination in any realistic sample — has a chance of being detected and distinguished.

The DNA extraction itself begins with the physical grinding of the sample material into a powder, which is then treated with chemicals that break open the cells and dissolve the chemical bonds holding the DNA in place.

The resulting solution contains DNA fragments — mostly very short, typically under 100 base pairs in length, compared to the hundreds of thousands of base pairs in undamaged modern DNA — along with cellular debris and potential contaminants.