Chinese researchers have impregnated a panda with a frozen sperm and the artificial insemination yielded a healthy baby panda on Thursday.

The mother panda named You You gave birth at the Bifengxia breeding base in Ya'an City in southwest China's Sichuan province, the researchers from the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center announced Friday.

It was the first time a panda was conceived using sperm frozen for years offering Chinese conservationists an alternative technique to breed the endangered bear species.

There are about 1,600 pandas living in the wild in China's Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. About 180 pandas live in breeding centers.