Aug 16, 2022 05:26 PM
(This post was last modified: Aug 16, 2022 05:35 PM by C C.)
‘It is not a matter of if but when’: US biotech behind project to recreate woolly mammoth turns its attention to thylacine
https://www.irishtimes.com/world/asia-pa...xtinction/
INTRO: The Tasmanian tiger could be reintroduced into the wild within a decade after a US biotechnology company backed by the Winklevoss twins pledged to recreate the animal almost 90 years after it was declared extinct.
The last thylacine, the official name of the Tasmanian tiger that was the Australian island’s apex predator, died in a zoo in Hobart in 1936. The wild population of the large carnivorous marsupial was wiped out by farmers and the local government, which put a bounty on the animal during the 19th century to protect sheep.
Unconfirmed sightings of the striped, doglike creature wandering the Tasmanian wilderness have added to its mythical status and spawned hopes that the animal had somehow survived. “It’s like our Loch Ness monster,” said Andrew Pask, a professor and evolutionary biologist at the University of Melbourne, who runs the Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research — or TIGRR — Lab, which has recreated the thylacine genome.
Prof Pask’s lab will collaborate with Colossal Biosciences, which was spun out of the work of George Church, a Harvard professor who was one of the creators of the Human Genome Project. The company is already working to recreate a woolly mammoth as part of its “de-extinction” plan.
The Dallas-based company has raised $75 million (€73.8 million) and has been backed by investors including Silicon Valley venture capitalists, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Chris Hemsworth, the actor who plays Marvel’s “Thor”.
Colossal hopes to convert the gene-editing processes it will use for the thylacine and mammoth for commercial use in humans... (MORE - details)
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De-extinction company sets its next (first?) target: The thylacine (Ars Technica)
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/...thylacine/
INTRO: Of all the species that humanity has wiped off the face of the Earth, the thylacine is possibly the most tragic loss. A wolf-sized marsupial sometimes called the Tasmanian tiger, the thylacine met its end in part because the government paid its citizens a bounty for every animal killed. That end came recently enough that we have photographs and film clips of the last thylacines ending their days in zoos. Late enough that in just a few decades, countries would start writing laws to prevent other species from seeing the same fate.
On Tuesday, a company called Colossal, which has already said it wants to bring the mammoth back, is announcing a partnership with an Australian lab that it says will de-extinct the thylacine with the goal of re-introducing it into the wild. A number of features of marsupial biology make this a more realistic goal than the mammoth, although there's still a lot of work to do before we even start the debate about whether reintroducing the species is a good idea.
To find out more about the company's plans for the thylacine, we had a conversation with Colossal's founder, Ben Lamm, and the head of the lab he's partnering with, Andrew Pask... (MORE - details)
https://www.irishtimes.com/world/asia-pa...xtinction/
INTRO: The Tasmanian tiger could be reintroduced into the wild within a decade after a US biotechnology company backed by the Winklevoss twins pledged to recreate the animal almost 90 years after it was declared extinct.
The last thylacine, the official name of the Tasmanian tiger that was the Australian island’s apex predator, died in a zoo in Hobart in 1936. The wild population of the large carnivorous marsupial was wiped out by farmers and the local government, which put a bounty on the animal during the 19th century to protect sheep.
Unconfirmed sightings of the striped, doglike creature wandering the Tasmanian wilderness have added to its mythical status and spawned hopes that the animal had somehow survived. “It’s like our Loch Ness monster,” said Andrew Pask, a professor and evolutionary biologist at the University of Melbourne, who runs the Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research — or TIGRR — Lab, which has recreated the thylacine genome.
Prof Pask’s lab will collaborate with Colossal Biosciences, which was spun out of the work of George Church, a Harvard professor who was one of the creators of the Human Genome Project. The company is already working to recreate a woolly mammoth as part of its “de-extinction” plan.
The Dallas-based company has raised $75 million (€73.8 million) and has been backed by investors including Silicon Valley venture capitalists, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Chris Hemsworth, the actor who plays Marvel’s “Thor”.
Colossal hopes to convert the gene-editing processes it will use for the thylacine and mammoth for commercial use in humans... (MORE - details)
- - - - -
De-extinction company sets its next (first?) target: The thylacine (Ars Technica)
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/...thylacine/
INTRO: Of all the species that humanity has wiped off the face of the Earth, the thylacine is possibly the most tragic loss. A wolf-sized marsupial sometimes called the Tasmanian tiger, the thylacine met its end in part because the government paid its citizens a bounty for every animal killed. That end came recently enough that we have photographs and film clips of the last thylacines ending their days in zoos. Late enough that in just a few decades, countries would start writing laws to prevent other species from seeing the same fate.
On Tuesday, a company called Colossal, which has already said it wants to bring the mammoth back, is announcing a partnership with an Australian lab that it says will de-extinct the thylacine with the goal of re-introducing it into the wild. A number of features of marsupial biology make this a more realistic goal than the mammoth, although there's still a lot of work to do before we even start the debate about whether reintroducing the species is a good idea.
To find out more about the company's plans for the thylacine, we had a conversation with Colossal's founder, Ben Lamm, and the head of the lab he's partnering with, Andrew Pask... (MORE - details)