It’s been 4,000 years ago from today the Woolly Mammoth became extinct but, now they have the chances to get back into life. Scientists have announced that they are one step closer to resurrecting the Woolly mammoth. Although, this kind of incident could be seen in sci-fi movies but, if this could have become possible then it would be the real-life version of Jurassic park.
Scientists from Harvard university in the United States have finally announced that they will be able to create a functioning embryo within two years. Although bringing back an extinct species is very difficult and creating a fully grown Mammoth would take too much time. Scientists picked up the DNA from the snowy wastes of Siberia from where the mammoth specimens were frozen for thousands of years. The announcement about their gene cloning program was first reported in The Guardian.
Lead researcher of Harvard University team, Dr. George Church said in a statement,“Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo. Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. We’re not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years”. by using genetical engineering technique experts were able to create cells containing genes for mammoth.
According to Popular Mechanics, there is a lack of suitable genetic material for cloning because most of the DNA samples have been destroyed while being frozen for a long period. So, Harvard scientists are approaching a different way. They are trying to modifying Elephant genome and replacing the elephant genes with mammoths. in this way, they are planning to manually re-create mammoth genome.
However, the final product may not look same as the extinct species used to be, but it would look pretty much homogeneous. The engineered genome will be implanted inside the Elephant embryo. Although, it would take at least two years to become possible. Once it occurs, scientists will try to bring the embryo to term using an artificial womb.
