Posted on Aug 21, 2022
A plan to bring the Tasmanian tiger back from extinction raises questions
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https://www.npr.org/2022/08/20/ [login to see] /tasmanian-tiger-australia-genetic-editing
If you haven't heard of the Tasmanian tiger, it's not because it's unworthy of discussion: it's famously not a feline but a dog-like marsupial, a predator that humans hunted to extinction. The last known specimen died in a zoo in 1936.
Now the "de-extinction" company Colossal Biosciences wants to genetically resurrect the Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) or the Tasmanian wolf.
If you haven't heard of the Tasmanian tiger, it's not because it's unworthy of discussion: it's famously not a feline but a dog-like marsupial, a predator that humans hunted to extinction. The last known specimen died in a zoo in 1936.
Now the "de-extinction" company Colossal Biosciences wants to genetically resurrect the Tasmanian tiger, also known as the thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) or the Tasmanian wolf.
A plan to bring the Tasmanian tiger back from extinction raises questions
Posted from npr.org
Australia
Wildlife
Science
Posted >1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."How would the animals be created?
For one thing, it's not cloning.
"Cloning is a very specific scientific process. That process requires a living cell," evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro of University of California, Santa Cruz told NPR when talk of resurrecting the mammoth gained new currency in 2015.
Instead, Colossal plans to essentially create a hybrid animal, with many of the characteristics of a Tasmanian tiger. Its scientists will use CRISPR gene editing technology to splice bits of recovered thylacine DNA into the genome of a Dasyurid — a family of carnivorous marsupials such as the numbat and Tasmanian devil that are the extinct animal's closest relatives.
The altered nucleus would then be inserted into a Dasyurid egg — and when it develops into an embryo, it would be implanted into a surrogate."...
I wonder how Tasmanian ribs taste... :-)
..."How would the animals be created?
For one thing, it's not cloning.
"Cloning is a very specific scientific process. That process requires a living cell," evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro of University of California, Santa Cruz told NPR when talk of resurrecting the mammoth gained new currency in 2015.
Instead, Colossal plans to essentially create a hybrid animal, with many of the characteristics of a Tasmanian tiger. Its scientists will use CRISPR gene editing technology to splice bits of recovered thylacine DNA into the genome of a Dasyurid — a family of carnivorous marsupials such as the numbat and Tasmanian devil that are the extinct animal's closest relatives.
The altered nucleus would then be inserted into a Dasyurid egg — and when it develops into an embryo, it would be implanted into a surrogate."...
I wonder how Tasmanian ribs taste... :-)
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