Australian scientists obsessed with Jurassic Park are trying to get the "Australian tiger" to recover from extinction.
(1) The vanishing thylacine
Australia is the fastest-moving country in the world for mammals, driven largely by invasive species such as foxes and wildcats, as well as changing wildfire patterns.
The "Australian Tiger" – the Tasmanian Tiger, also known as the Thylacine. Since the last thylacine died in a park in Australia in 1936, the species of thylacine has officially disappeared from the earth.
According to the latest report from the Washington Post, a scientist obsessed with Jurassic Park in Melbourne, Australia, is trying to get the thylacine to recover from extinction. He hopes that the scientific advances necessary to restore the thylacine will also help the endangered animals that are still alive.
(2) The key to recovery
In Melbourne, Australia, the scientist reached into a wall of the University of Melbourne's Biological Sciences Building and pulled out a Dunnart — a mouse-sized marsupial with huge jet-black eyes. It bit the finger of developmental biologist Stephen Frankenberg. Frankenberg put it back in, and it sped into the egg box and native grass home.
This tiny creature seems unlikely to be a close relative of the top predators. But this could be the key to making the thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger, recover from extinction.
The research is part of the university's newly established Thylacine Integrated Gene Recovery Research (TIGRR) laboratory. A team of genetic scientists, led by Andrew Pask, a professor of biological sciences, is trying to make the concept of "extinction" a reality. Over the next decade, they plan to use gene editing to turn Dunart cells into thylacine cells and bring the long-dead creature into the world today.
(3) Recovery plan
First, dunat cells were converted into thylacine cells using gene editing techniques.
The embryos are then made using thylacine cells in a Petri dish or in the womb of a living animal. Embryos are implanted in female marsupials (e.g., Possum ferrets) and watched for the Possum to give birth to thylacine babies.
When the baby is old enough to leave the bag, raise it into adulthood. Repeat and build a healthy population with the goal of releasing thylacines into the wild.
