The quest for dodo\u2019s de-extinction has gathered steam again.<\/p>\n
Colossal Biosciences has announced a significant breakthrough in its attempts to bring the flightless bird back to life, 300 years after it became extinct. The Texas-based company has grown pigeon primordial cells for the first time; they are also regarded as precursor cells to sperm and eggs.<\/p>\n
Announcing this breakthrough on Wednesday, the biotech firm also revealed that they have developed gene-edited chickens, which will act as surrogates for the dodos. Scientists will inject these chickens with special cells from Nicobar pigeons \u2013 the dodo\u2019s closest relatives.<\/p>\n
With gene edits, Colossal believes these chickens could one day breed dodos.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the really important step for the dodo project, but also for bird conservation, more broadly,\u201d said Beth Shapiro, Colossal\u2019s chief science officer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a negating step for the dodo project. We needed this to move on, and now that we have it, really, we\u2019re off and running,\u201d he stated.<\/a><\/p>\n The process of resurrection<\/p>\n After growing the primordial germ cells, the Colossal scientists plan to edit these with dodo-specific genes. The edited cells will then be placed into sterile chicken embryos.<\/p>\n When these chickens breed, their offspring could produce eggs and sperm carrying dodo traits. Over generations, this process could yield living birds that resemble the long-extinct dodo.<\/p>\n Ben Lamm, Colossal\u2019s chief executive, revealed how much time it would be before the world sees the results of their experiment.<\/p>\n \u201cRough ballpark, we think it\u2019s still five to seven years out, but it\u2019s not 20 years out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Colossal is working with wildlife groups to identify safe, rat-free sites in Mauritius where the species could breathe again.<\/p>\n A timeline for the project<\/p>\n The genetic engineering company made headlines when it bagged a $150 million grant<\/a> in 2023 to support its de-extinction efforts. The current progress collides with an additional $120 million funding extension, bringing Colossal\u2019s total amount to $555 million in funding.<\/p>\n And, these efforts aren\u2019t limited only to the dodos.<\/p>\n In the past, Colossal has also revealed plans to revive other species of extinct animals like the Tasmanian tiger, New Zealand\u2019s giant moa, and woolly mammoths.<\/p>\n Earlier in April this year, Colossal claimed to have brought dire wolves<\/a> out of extinction using a novel iterative genome assembly method. After embarking on the quest to bring back dodos, the company also teamed up with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation to create native habitats <\/a>in which the bird survived before its extinction.<\/p>\n Is \u2018de-extinction\u2019 possible?<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to believe something dead centuries ago could be brought back alive. Colossal\u2019s researchers have faced a fair amount of criticism for their efforts, and they don\u2019t exactly shy away from it either.<\/p>\n While critics believe it\u2019s not possible to resurrect an extinct animal, the company has already cleared the air around this debate. It has said that the experiments don\u2019t aim to bring back something that\u2019s 100 percent genetically identical to the extinct species, but only to create copies with their key traits.<\/p>\n While that sounds believable, other risks are involved regarding the protection of the species used for such experiments, according to conservationists. It remains to be seen if Colossal can actually succeed and have the world in awe of science yet again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The quest for dodo\u2019s de-extinction has gathered steam again. Colossal Biosciences has announced a significant breakthrough in its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1381,25112,25113,61,60,82,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-31211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-biotech","9":"tag-dodo","10":"tag-extinct-animal","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}