Plans to use genetic technologies to recreate the dodo, a large flightless bird that vanished more than 400 years ago, have gained significant momentum, according to the Texas-based biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences.<\/p>\n
Researchers at the company said they had succeeded in culturing specialized cells from the rock pigeon (Columba livia), better known as the common pigeon. They plan to apply the same or similar methods to culture cells from the closest living relative of the dodo \u2013 the Nicobar pigeon, which belongs to the same bird family.<\/p>\n
Colossal described the achievement as a \u201cturning point\u201d in the long-running effort to revive the dodo, cautioning that reviving a living dodo is still ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is truly an important step for the dodo project, but also for bird conservation in general,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Beth Shapiro<\/p>\n
\u201cThis step essentially removes a barrier to the dodo project. We needed it to move forward, and now that it exists, we are truly moving ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Beth Shapiro<\/p>\n
The Ambitions and Realities of De-Extinction Technologies<\/p>\n
The company also drew attention with its previous achievement: in April they reported the birth of three wolf-like canids \u2013 the revival of a carnivorous ancestor through ancient DNA, cloning, and gene editing. Similar efforts to bring back the mammoth and other extinct species are also underway.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday Colossal announced an additional funding of $120 million, bringing the total funding since its founding in 2021 to $555 million.<\/p>\n
However, the methods needed to put the bird back on wings differ from those used for wolves: birds develop in eggs and cannot be cloned in the same way as mammals, which makes the process much more complex.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn birds, the slowest part is two generations. We cannot clone cells, so we have to create mothers and fathers separately, and then cross them to obtain both copies of the gene for modification,\u201d said Shapiro. \u201cIt\u2019s quite slow.\u201d<\/p>\n
To this end, scientists at Colossal have focused on cultivating primordial germ cell (PGC) progenitors from the rock pigeon \u2013 a vital component for the formation of eggs and sperm \u2013 in and around New York City.<\/p>\n
The company noted that the chosen model \u2013 the rock pigeon \u2013 was selected because of its widespread breeding and its distant relation to the dodo. Researchers previously successfully cultured PGCs from chickens and ducks, which laid the groundwork for various avian-reproduction experiments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first cell-culture recipe for chicken PGCs was published nearly 20 years ago,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Anna Keite<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, that recipe did not work for any other bird species, not even closely related ones like pheasants. Discovering a recipe for pigeons greatly expands avian reproductive technologies and underpins our work on the dodo,\u201d Keite added.<\/p>\n
The team tested more than 300 recipes before finding the right combination of growth factors, molecules, and metabolites that allowed gametogenic cells to grow for 60 days. Details of the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, were released on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Shapiro noted that the next steps include using the cells to create living pigeons born to a surrogate hen as a proof of concept.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Colossal is working on cultivating primordial gametogenic cells of the Nicobar pigeon \u2013 a species more closely related to the dodo. The company established a breeding colony of these birds in Texas and began collecting the relevant cells.<\/p>\n
In addition, the scientists plan to edit the Nicobar pigeon\u2019s gametogenic cells to include dodo traits, using genomic data from museum specimens. After that, the edited PGCs will be integrated into the embryos of ordinary chickens, which already carry modifications, so that they would not produce their own gametes. Chickens are chosen as surrogates due to their size and suitability for laboratory conditions.<\/p>\n
The main goal is to enable the development of edited Nicobar pigeon PGCs into functional eggs and sperm, so that the descendants\u2019 eggs and sperm carry dodo traits.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, these achievements \u2013 culturing pigeon and chicken PGCs with edited genomes that do not produce their own PGCs \u2013 lay the groundwork for using surrogate chickens to bring back the dodo\u2019s relatives, and eventually the dodo itself,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Colossal<\/p>\n
According to Ben Lamm, the CEO of Colossal, it will take at least five to seven years to realize this plan.<\/p>\n
Critics note that, despite advances in genetic engineering, fully reviving an extinct species is impossible \u2013 any attempt would likely produce only a hybrid.<\/p>\n
The company insists that the goal is not to copy the vanished genetic code in full, but to create functional copies with the key traits.<\/p>\n
\u201cDodos belonged to the pigeon family. So given the degree of shared genes between the dodo and the Nicobar pigeon, theoretically you would only need to insert the dodo\u2019s unique genes into a gametogenic cell or edit the pigeon\u2019s genes to make it resemble the dodo. This could yield a bird similar to the dodo,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Scott McDougall-Shackleton<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Colossal\u2019s achievements push the field of genetic engineering forward, reviving an extinct species is not possible \u2013 any attempt would create only a modified hybrid,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 biodiversity conservation experts<\/p>\n
\u201cCould we now find a stable variant, perhaps in a historic sample or in a very close relative, known to be resistant to a particular pathogen, and could we reintroduce this into the general population?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Koos van Oosterhout<\/p>\n
\u201cJurassic Park\u2013style technologies attract investors with deep pockets who typically have little interest in biodiversity,\u201d Oosterhout concluded.<\/p>\n
However, gene editing is just one element of a larger puzzle. Experts emphasize that the main responsibility of society is to prevent extinction and habitat loss. Technologies cannot by themselves solve the biodiversity crisis: they may help individual species, but they are not the \u201cfuel\u201d for reviving species.<\/p>\n
In the future, such technologies may serve as tools to support conservation, but the core work of conserving biodiversity will remain with humanity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plans to use genetic technologies to recreate the dodo, a large flightless bird that vanished more than 400…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[79978,55602,99407,99406,99408,27066,99409,200,3,99410,99411,79,99412,99413],"class_list":{"0":"post-164290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-biodiversity-conservation","9":"tag-colossal-biosciences","10":"tag-dodo-revival","11":"tag-dodo-revival-genetic-technology-colossal-biosciences-pigeon-cells-species-restoration-biodiversity-conservation-extinct-species-gene-editing","12":"tag-extinct-species","13":"tag-gene-editing","14":"tag-genetic-technology","15":"tag-genetics","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-nicobar-pigeon","18":"tag-pigeon-cells","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-species-restoration","21":"tag-surrogate-chickens"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}