By CHRISTINA LARSON
WASHINGTON (AP) — The dodo chicken isn’t coming again anytime quickly. Nor is the woolly mammoth. But an organization engaged on applied sciences to convey again extinct species has attracted extra buyers, whereas different scientists are skeptical such feats are potential or a good suggestion.
Colossal Biosciences first introduced its formidable plan to revive the woolly mammoth two years in the past, and on Tuesday stated it wished to convey again the dodo chicken, too.
“The dodo is a symbol of man-made extinction,” stated Ben Lamm, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of Colossal. The firm has fashioned a division to deal with bird-related genetic applied sciences.
The final dodo, a flightless chicken concerning the dimension of a turkey, was killed in 1681 on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.
The Dallas firm, which launched in 2021, additionally introduced Tuesday it had raised an extra $150 million in funding. To date, it has raised $225 million from wide-ranging buyers that embody United States Innovative Technology Fund, Breyer Capital and In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s enterprise capital agency which invests in know-how.
The prospect of bringing the dodo again isn’t anticipated to immediately generate income, stated Lamm. But the genetic instruments and tools that the corporate develops to attempt to do it could produce other makes use of, together with for human well being care, he stated.
For instance, Colossal is now testing instruments to tweak a number of components of the genome concurrently. It’s additionally engaged on applied sciences for what is usually referred to as an “artificial womb,” he stated.
The dodo’s closest dwelling relative is the Nicobar pigeon, stated Beth Shapiro, a molecular biologist on Colossal’s scientific advisory board, who has been finding out the dodo for 20 years. Shapiro is paid by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which additionally helps The Associated Press’ Health and Science Department.
Her group plans to check DNA variations between the Nicobar pigeon and the dodo to grasp “what are the genes that really make a dodo a dodo,” she stated.
The group could then try and edit Nicobar pigeon cells to make them resemble dodo cells. It could also be potential to place the tweaked cells into growing eggs of different birds, similar to pigeons or chickens, to create offspring that will in flip naturally produce dodo eggs, stated Shapiro. The idea continues to be in an early theoretical stage for dodos.
Because animals are a product of each their genetics and their surroundings — which has modified dramatically because the 1600s — Shapiro stated that “it’s not possible to recreate a 100% identical copy of something that’s gone.”
Other scientists marvel if it’s even advisable to strive, and query whether or not “de-extinction” diverts consideration and cash away from efforts to save lots of species nonetheless on Earth.
“There’s a real hazard in saying that if we destroy nature, we can just put it back together again — because we can’t,” stated Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who has no connection to Colossal.
“And where on Earth would you put a woolly mammoth, other than in a cage?” requested Pimm, who famous that the ecosystems the place mammoths lived disappeared way back.
On a sensible degree, conservation biologists conversant in captive breeding applications say that it may be difficult for zoo-bred animals to ever adapt to the wild.
It helps if they’ll study from different wild animals of their type — a bonus that potential dodos and mammoths received’t have, stated Boris Worm, a biologist on the University of Dalhousie in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who has no connection to Colossal.
“Preventing species from going extinct in the first place should be our priority, and in most cases, it’s a lot cheaper,” stated Worm.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives help from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely accountable for all content material.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”