'The tools are now in theory available that people could use to bring things back. However, he told MailOnline that bringing it back from the dead would not be easy. The recent study was led by evolutionary geneticist Dr Tom Gilbert at the University of Copenhagen, who said he was planning experiments to 'de-extinct' the creature in the near future. Rattus macleari, commonly known as the Christmas Island rat or Maclear's rat, was a large rat endemic to Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.īut it was driven to extinction at some point between 18, possibly in 1903, likely due to diseases brought over on European ships. This time it is not Colossal Biosciences, but the idea is the same.Īn international team of academics outlined in a research paper how the use of CRISPR could lead to the rat's 'de-extinction'. In March last year, scientists revealed plans to bring back the extinct Christmas Island rat, 119 years after it was wiped out. Pictured, the Norway brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) - a widespread extant rat species and the dominant rat in Europe and much of North America How could it be brought back? Crispr-Cas9 This is where the nucleus from a donated Asian elephant egg is removed, and the hybrid nucleus, which is the Asian elephant nucleus edited with the woolly mammoth DNA, is inserted in its place.Įlectrical pulses are then applied to the egg to stimulate fertilisation, causing it to divide and grow into an embryo.Īfter the embryo has developed, it is implanted into a surrogate African elephant, where it will be carried to term.Ĭolossal hopes the process will end in the birth of a woolly mammoth, or an animal closely resembling the species, which company aims to achieve within four to six years.Ĭlosest living relative: Fat-tailed dunnart When scientists are satisfied that the hybrid cells are functioning correctly, the nucleus transfer begins. Once again, the DNA from a host living animal – in this case the Asian elephant – is spliced together with that of the woolly mammoth using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool. The next step is where the process differs from the dodo, and birds in general, because it involves using somatic cells such as skin cells, rather than primordial germ cells. This was first done successfully in 2008. To do this, in a similar way to the iconic flightless bird, researchers plan to create a sort of elephant-mammoth hybrid using the woolly mammoth's closest-living relative, the Asian elephant.Īgain, the first thing to do is sequence the genome of the woolly mammoth from a well-preserved specimen - such as one recovered after being frozen in permafrost. It is also working to 'de-extinction' the woolly mammoth, although it is not the only company that has raised the idea of doing so. In a similar way to the iconic flightless bird, researchers plan to create a sort of elephant-mammoth hybrid using the woolly mammoth's closest-living relative, the Asian elephantĬolossal doesn't just want to bring back the dodo. How could it be brought back? Crispr-Cas9 Lived in: Steppe tundra, from Spain across Eurasia to Canada, and the Arctic to China When the resulting chick hatches it may have a few differences compared to the original species, just because of how challenging it is to 100 per cent replicate an extinct creature's genetic code.Īnd the hope is that this dodo-like creature could be born within the next five years. They will then edit these cells to more closely resemble a dodo, such as its flightlessness, and then insert them back into a host pigeon egg. In the dodo's case, scientists will take primordial germ cells – embryonic precursors of sperm and egg that pass on genetic code from one generation to the next – from a Nicobar pigeon. This will be tricky, as no one has yet managed to use gene-editing for birds in this way. In mammals, this gene-edited material would then be embedded in the reproductive system of an existing relative of the species.īut because the dodo is a bird, the technique has to be tweaked somewhat because it needs to account for an external egg. This is a technique that can 'cut and paste' small sections of DNA, meaning scientists can delete or edit certain genes so that they more accurately represent the animal they are looking to recreate. The aim is to make the genome match that of the extinct bird's, or get as close to it as possible, with the help of Crispr-Cas9. Having obtained the 3ft (one metre) tall bird's genome, experts will next have to gene-edit the cell of a close living relative, which for the dodo is the Nicobar pigeon. Colossal Biosciences, based in Dallas, Texas, wants to 'de-extinct' the dodo, more than 350 years after it was wiped out from the island of Mauritius in the 17th century.
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