A group of researchers are getting closer to bringing the extinct woolly mammoth back to life. Geneticist George Church’s lab at Harvard University successfully copied genes from frozen woolly mammoths and pasted them into the genome of an Asian elephant.
Using a DNA editing tool called CRISPR, the scientists spliced genes for the mammoths’ small ears, subcutaneous fat, and hair length and color into the DNA of elephant skin cells. The tissue cultures represent the first time woolly mammoth genes have been functional since the species went extinct around 4,000 years ago.
The research has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal “because there is more work to do,” Church told the U.K.’s Sunday Times, “but we plan to do so.”
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Pretty cool what can be done these days. Medicine is truly advancing here.
ReplyDeleteToo bad Obamacare came along to destroy innovation.
Why are they doing this?
ReplyDeleteThey did successfully splice human genes into a chimp, and then put him in the Whitehouse!
ReplyDelete