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Sequenceable DNA can be recovered from museum specimens and some fossils of extinct species. That discovery in the 1980s set in motion the idea that it might be possible to bring some extinct animals back to life. The advent of ever-cheaper shotgun-sequencing of living genomes meant that the highly fragmented condition of "ancient DNA" was no barrier to reconstructing the whole genome of creatures long gone. Meanwhile, the rise of "synthetic biology" since 2000 is providing highly precise genome-editing tools.
Maybe we can edit long-dead genomes back to life. Maybe extinct species could walk the Earth again. Maybe they could once again thrive in the wild.
That prospect led to a nonprofit I cofounded with my wife, Ryan Phelan (she's the director; I write screeds like this), called Revive & Restore. Its mission is "to enhance biodiversity through genetic rescue of endangered and extinct species." Genetic rescue, we've realized, can have a wide range of applications. Genomic technology being developed to revive extinct species can be deployed to prevent extinction in some endangered species.
A major problem faced by species...
Maybe we can edit long-dead genomes back to life. Maybe extinct species could walk the Earth again. Maybe they could once again thrive in the wild.
That prospect led to a nonprofit I cofounded with my wife, Ryan Phelan (she's the director; I write screeds like this), called Revive & Restore. Its mission is "to enhance biodiversity through genetic rescue of endangered and extinct species." Genetic rescue, we've realized, can have a wide range of applications. Genomic technology being developed to revive extinct species can be deployed to prevent extinction in some endangered species.
A major problem faced by species...