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Subscribe to RSSHendrik Poinar, a scientist who believes he is close to cracking the woolly mammoth's genetic code, says that cloning extinct species is now possible. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.
Russian and South Korean scientists, including the cloning expert who was the focus of a stem-cell scandal six years ago, have signed a deal to try re-creating a woolly mammoth using cells recovered from 10,000-year-old frozen remains.
The papers for the joint research project were signed on Tuesday by Hwang Woo-Suk, chief technology officer for South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation; and Vasily Vasiliev, vice director of Russia's North-Eastern Federal University, during a ceremony at Hwang's office in Seoul.
Hwang is infamous for his role in human embryonic stem-cell research: In 2004 and 2005, he and his colleagues claimed to have extracted stem cells from what they characterized as the world's first cloned human embryos. But in late 2005, his work was found to have been based on fabricated data, and he was barred from continuing research with human cells.
Despite the disgrace, Hwang continued working with animal cloning techniques. Before the scandal broke, his team announced that they produced the world's first cloned dog, nicknamed Snuppy, and that claim has stood up to scrutiny. Last October, Hwang's team at Sooam unveiled eight cloned coyotes that had been produced by injecting nuclei from coyote skin cells into dog eggs. At the time, he said he was interested in cloning an endangered African dog species known as the lycaon ... and was interested in cloning a mammoth, too.
In December, Japanese news media said that scientists recovered a seemingly viable sample of bone marrow from a frozen mammoth thigh bone in Russia's Sakha Republic, and that a mammoth could be cloned back from extinction within five years. This week, Agence France-Presse reported that North-Eastern Federal University is working with the Japanese scientists and with the Koreans. The Beijing Genomics Institute is said to be taking part in the Korean-Russian project as well.
Reports from Seoul suggest that the mammoth-cloning effort could be launched this year if the Russians can ship the remains to Sooam's laboratory. "The first and hardest mission is to restore mammoth cells," a colleague of Hwang's at Sooam, Hwang In-Sung, told AFP.
Jung Yeon-Je / AFP - Getty Images
South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk, (far left) and Vasily Vasiliev, vice director of North-Eastern Federal University of Russia's Sakha Republic (far right), exchange agreements during a signing ceremony on joint research at Hwang's office in Seoul on Tuesday.
Sooam Biotech Research / AFP - Getty Images
This diagram released by the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation shows the process of replacing the nuclei of elephant egg cells with those taken from the mammoth's somatic cells to bring a mammoth back to life.
The plan calls for extracting nuclei from the thawed-out mammoth cells, putting them into elephant egg cells and stimulating the cells to start dividing. Embryos would be implanted into elephant wombs for gestation — and if the effort is successful, a mother elephant would give birth to a baby mammoth around 22 months later.
That's a big "if," as I wrote in December when I discussed the Japanese-Russian project. In addition to the usual problems surrounding interspecies cloning, it's highly doubtful that genetic material recovered from tissue that's been frozen for millennia would be sufficiently intact for extraction and implantation. What do you think of Hwang's chances? Feel free to register your vote at right, and voice your opinion in the comment section below.
More about mammoths:
- Clone a mammoth? Not so fast
- Mammoths mated with a different elephant species
- Mammoth resurrection on the way?
- Woolly mammoth's DNA mapped
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Yabbadabbadoo!!
Hiya Fred, this is Barney, you wanna go out for Brontosaurus ribs? Can't stay out too late, I gotta put Bam-Bam to bed in his rock cradle.
Well, I'd certainly pay to see one. The bio-ethical questions are beyond me and my tiny monkey/lizard brain.
Hey, can we clone Osti? The frozen guy from the alps? Then we could ask him what happened?
CSI Bern is dying to know. I mean Osti is the ultimate "cold case" right?
Very funny, Skip. I'm quite sure you realize that any cloned organism human or otherwise would have no memory whatsoever from it's progenitors.
The primary bioethics issue, as I see it, is why? Even if it were definitively possible to do this, and as yet we don't even know, would it be the right thing to do? The hypothetical mammoth which would be created would be alone in this world, completely out of sorts with the warming environment and would have no place to live except perhaps in some sort of giant refrigerated zoo.
Oh, but we could create more than one and breed them! Well that just compounds the habitat problem. Whatterya gonna do? Release a family of newly cloned mammoths into Siberia just for sh*ts and giggles? Bad idea. Stick with cloning existing animals.
Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first mammoth. Manny will be that mammoth. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.
Mikeymike,
I think the biggest problem with solving the Osti mystery by cloning him and asking him what happened will be the communication challenge. I mean, he'll be speaking pre-historic italian or swiss, right? Talk about a dead language. Where are you going to find a dictionary for that?!
Maybe they could take him to a cave and he could do some crime scene drawings on the walls.
Yeah, that's probably what they'd have to do.
Then they could give him the cloned Mammoth as pet. Hey, if we could find a frozen cave woman maybe we could breed them and have a whole new cave person population and they could all go to work for Geico.
i will take unicorns and dragons please hahahaha
Anyone else see the youtube video? Is it a mammoth? Or a bear with a fish? Maybe the russians cloned it already and didn't tell anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye4jzSLX0mI
About twenty/thirty years ago the Peregrine falcon - which originally was found on the East Coast/West Coast and places in between including Alaska - was threatened with extinction it seemed - though that conclusion was somewhat debatable; for the sake of this argument the point is moot.
Anyway, at that time due to the prevalence of DDT (the pesticide) throughout the ecosystem and its affect on the egg shells of Peregrines, which caused the eggshells of newly laid eggs to become dangerously thin and often break shortly after being laid and before hatching the numbers of Peregrines was dropping perciptiously. As a result, the Peregrine was then put on the endangered species list with all the attendant stringent laws attached to that designation.
At the same time, efforts on the part of Cornell University under the guidance of Dr. Tom Cade began toward perfecting the process of captive breeding through artificial insemination of Peregrines in one of the most concerted efforts ever of its sort. (Did you know that ALL TURKEYs that show up at Thanksgiving dinners are the result of artifical insemination because we have made the breasts of the male turkey's so big they can not longer breed with female turkeys? True - believe it or not; how would you like to be the the guy or gal doing that job for Mom, Country and Apple Pie!)
Long story short; the Peregrine is no longer endangered. In fact, though certainly not as easy to breed as chickens, they are not in any way shape or form in danger of extinction.
My guess is that the reason they have chosen to focus on reconstituting and bringing back the Mammoth is because they know that the project has enough pizazz to catch people's imaginations and help them garner the necessary funding to make the project a reality. Just as someone said in a comment lower down here, "I would pay to see a Mammoth."
Once the technology is perfected it will then easily be applicable to any and all species that may be endangered. To lament, as someone did below that we should focus on species that are currently going extinct in the here and now is both a valid concern as well as reasonable observation however, the fact is, and you have to admit it, it is not going to be easy to talk people into paying money to see (or care about) a Pyrgulopsis agarhecta (an endangered snail) is going to not just a hard sell, but an impossible one!
The key to getting things done is not to say to people, "You have to do it or else." but rather to use the little gray cells (as Hercule Poirot was wont to say) and figure out a way to make what you want done serve a lot of peoples' interests and by doing so cause them to naturally want to support your efforts - not fight them.
I agree. These animals and others like them are extinct for a reason.
It will ultimately happen, but it may not be 100% pure Mammoth. There will likely be 'breaks' in the genetic code that will have to be 'spliced' with Elephant DNA, but the end product will likely look like a Mammoth.
Once we 'map' the DNA of ancient creatures and learn more about 'splicing' techniques, we will likely be able to 'recreate' many extinct creatures - but what would we do with them? They will be little more than scientific 'curiosities'.
As for cloning humans, it's only a matter of time - the technology is certain available now, and I wouldn't be surprised if it has already happened, but kept quiet to avoid attacks on the basis of 'ethical grounds'.
If they can clone and animal that has been extinct for that long, why not do something that actually has a benefit? There are dozens of species on the BRINK of extinction. Why not use science to save animals that still have a niche in their eco systems, instead of reintroducing an animal that has no place in any current food chain? Its like worrying about hamburger that went bad last week instead of the steak on your table today....
If they manage to perfect cloning, "extinction" will become moot. And there are better ways of saving endangered species...like actually working to save them instead of putting all your hopes in an imperfect science. Plus, I want to see a mammoth.
Agree upto a point....the best of this type of research / experiments is about proof of concept, and capturing the research dollars and imagination of the world...I doubt you would be reading this article or that it would have been printed if the "clone" was going to be some salamander or finch???
PS...there is some evidence, that Man contributed significantly to the extinction in question...so it could be viewed as righting a wrong
I don't think Darwin wanted to bring a human ideology into a principally scientific discipline. In other words, a species dying out because of us can't be equated as right or wrong, but as simply catalyzing the evolutionary process.
There are already dna banks for the purpose of re-establishing species on the brink of extinction or recently extinct . Can't speak to the specifics why we don't see such efforts. Who knows, maybe some projects are already underway. I'd still like to see the cloned mammoth.
It's pretty useless and pointless to "save" an endangered species of that species has become endangered because of loss of habitat and human encroachment on habitat, and that's the case for a great number of endangered species. Putting cloned species is a zoo or enclosed game farm is hardly saving the species.
@dooper
Wrong was probably the Wrong word...We have had an outsided effect on the species that share our planet, and many extinct species would probably still be around and thriving without our "effect"...
If they pull this off it would be a giant leap forward in scientific knowledge and achievement. It would also be one helluva tourist attraction (for those who want to see some "benefit" to the endeavor).
What an Adventure!
is a BRINK the same as a brink? I would be proud to have a wooly mammoth as part of my food chain.
Cloning won't save an animal if the population is so low that you get cross-breeding issues. There are points where the populations are so inbred that you have to cross-breed with a species as closely-related as possible to reintroduce diversity.
Though if you have at least a few hundred animals, taking DNA, growing up a bank of cells per animal and then shipping out the vials between institutions to cross-breed distant populations wouldn't be a bad idea.
Don't clone animals to save them. Stop destroying the environment. Every time an animal goes extinct due to human activity a pebble is pulled from the bottom of the landslide. It's going to eventually all come down on our heads if we don't change our ways.
I hope that these cloning experiments do not mutate into creatures with some kind of zombie virus. After all, it IS 2012 and I made an expensive bet that we won't all die on December 21st.
Because animals on the brink of extinction aren't cool and exciting. Clone the mammoth, clone the T-Rex, and then sell tickets to watch the T-Rex fight the mammoth. Economy fixed.
Because we will just kill and force them out of their habitat again.
It will be a short lived effort unless they clone a male and a female.
Wonder what those tusks will go for?
At least there are still elephants around to give it a shot.
Ok, I get it. You are resurrecting a long extinct species. But seriously, do you have to start with something as ginormous as a mammoth?? Holy crap! I can't believe this is the only extinct species they have found viable cells from...
jm-1222826, actually soft tissue from a T. Rex was found
But not sure how the public would react to a T. Rex roaming in the jungle (probably not good for all the other little animals).
I wonder if they cloned that T-Rex using the Geico Gecko it would have a British accent?
That would be an even bigger tourist attraction!
Put the T-Rex on an island! It's not like it can walk across the ocean floor or fly or something. It would be stuck on the island and provide invaluable data helping us understand much more about the species as a whole as well as evolution.
There are other extinct species scientists have looked at resurrecting through cloning. Probably the thylacine is the most prominent example. That animal went extinct through large scale hunting from sheep herders in New Zealand. A realtively recent extinction (~100 years), the effort was abandoned because they couldn't produce any viable DNA. The mammoths were different in this respect because they were frozen.
eclipx211: Seems like I remember a movie like that...
The "soft tissue" from fossilized bones I think you are referring to involves using acids to dissolve the calcium in a sample with which surprisingly left some cartilaginous structures. I do not believe there was any recoverable DNA found. Also, I don't think it was T-rex, but perhaps the technique has since been tried on T-rex bone samples and I just haven't heard about it yet. Got a link?
MikeyMike, to be honest I actually have not followed up on the T rex story since I learned about it a few years ago in my evolution class. All I know is that Dr. Mary Schweitzer had found the T rex soft tissue and was trying to see if she could sequence any DNA. I am not sure what actually came of the discovery.
When they started letting those frozen remains thaw, you can bet it extinct, extanct, exstunk!
Zing!!!!!
They are calling this guy "disgraced". Wouldn't he be the decision maker on whether or not his circumstances amounted to being disgraced? He seems to have never admitted to being disgraced so I don't figure he actually is. That is just someone's opinion. Hell Hitler wasn't disgraced, he was an egocentric, megalomaniac, and a mass murder, but disgraced? He died thinking he was a superman....LOL.
Terry---
How could you possibly know what Hitler was thinking in the very moment that he died? I'll answer that. You can't know and, in fact, you don't know.
For all you know, Hitler could've been thinking that he did all that he did and still royally screwed up in the end; his little kingdom was marred with shattered glass all around; everything was ruined and they were coming for him and his new wife, Eva Braun, next!
The historical account is that Hitler took his own life - a cyanide pill and a gunshot to the head; that doesn't sound like anyone who thought he was superman.
And, when this scientist gets through cloning gigantic creatures that became extinct for a reason, this earth will probably need a superman to undo all that he's done.
It's strange, though, that this scientist inspired you think of various characteristics of Hitler.
Totcots, you are a freaking idiot.
Tortcots-2851476 Yes that is true but the Nazi era brought us computers, jets ,sonar ,radar, penicillin, helicopters, atomic bomb and hydrogen bomb , mega tank's ect.. and some unwanted by some sex dolls.
Grace, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Many egomaniacal convicted sociopathic killers, Charlie Manson for one example, have very high opinions of themselves. Their opinions of themselves is not what matters, but instead what we as a society determine through public trial.
If, just if, this could be done, where would this creature live? a zoo? I'll bet mother nature will have the final say and we won't be seeing woolly mammoths anytime soon.
I agree kip, although a woolly mammoth would be something wonderful to see, what would happen after ya left the zoo or where ever it would be housed at? These were very large, wide ranging creatures. Perhaps there just wouldn't be enough room on present day earth with the large human population.
They are from an ice age. We could set aside areas up north that they could live in, and there are insanely vast swaths of land up north that no one wants to live in. They will exist just fine in our time.
Siberia. Just where we are finding their frozen remains now. If scientists succeed with the mammoth, it could be possible to expand this to other species from that era (saber-toothed cats, anyone), and there have been ideas generated about creating entire preserves for these recreated species to inhabite.
Just because science can do something does it mean that it should? What is the point of bringing back a living being that is not part of the natural ecosystem? When we solve more pressing world issues may be then we can talk about doing things just for curiosity/fun. Science will bring back this poor soul not to roam free but to be a freak show in Hollywood movies and zoos.
Wouldn't you want to go see it?
If science didn't do things like this then we wouldn't have the technology that we currently have. Most modern technologies are offshoots or side affects from doing seemingly ridiculous experiments in order to find out how something works. A lot of our technology, for example, is a result of NASA, the space age, and everything they had to figure out in order to shoot a human off our planet successfully. Without the space age, we'd not be too far from the technology in the 50's. As it stands, within a period of less than 65 years, we are leaps and bounds ahead of the technology during that time. Look at the 65 years prior to that and you can see how much technological benefit science has given us recently. Let science do what it will as long as there is as little suffering, especially among humans, as possible.
Adam, yes I would be curious to see it. That still doesn't make it the right thing to do.
If cloned animals age prematurely and could possibly have other health issues, why do this? What is the purpose of cloning except to have an example of this long, lost animal. It seems that other cloned animals, such as Dolly, the sheep, didn't fare so well.
We were able to see the baby mammoth found in Russia at the Field Museum in Chicago and it was fantastic. It is hard to imagine the tiny little animal lived so many years ago and died so soon after her birth. Even after seeing this exhibit I wouldn't want to see her or any other mammoth cloned just to say it could be done.
Did the baby mammoth talk to you ?
So, they're cloning a mammoth.. big hairy deal!
Kudos to Hwang for continuing his research despite negativity in his past.
They would be poached for their tusks and driven to extinction once again.
I just wonder if a mammoth would be as tasty as elephant. It's a lot larger... so presumably that'd mean a slower rate of movement and even better marbling. And let's not forget, a LOT more brisket!
Personally I would like to see many species cloned and brought back from extinction: Such as the passenger pigeon that once darkened the skies of North America and was hunted to extinction. The Carolina parakeet, the dodo bird which was apparently clubbed to extinction by hungry sailors... There are many. We just need to find viable DNA and the right host.
Man, if you're gonna go to THAT much trouble, at least resurrect a T. Rex -- you know, something really COOL.
I've seen that movie. It doesn't end well.
It would be an awesome breakthrough in a massive form, literally, to show that science is something you can make progress with and kids can actually learn something in school to do great things instead of partying and dreaming of becoming reality TV show star. Let's see how they gonna teach this in Kansas where they want every kids to believe the world is only 6000 years old. Woooot, no worries, I don't think they know anything about math either, let's not confuse them.
If the cloning is successful, I hope they keep the huge creatures over there where they are. There's a reason the Woolly Mammoth is extinct.
As someone else said, why not use scientific-know-how to benefit mankind? Why attempt to recreate an animal already expunged from the ecological chain?
"Believing the Earth is only 6000 years old is like believing that the distance from New York to San Francisco is 28 feet."
Richard Dawkins
And, you felt the need to post that quote becaussssssse .... ?
He posted that because of comment #16. Like Terry said... Tortcots... you are and Idiot.
It's part of the natural order of things for species to go extinct. Trying to keep ones around that have already had their time is stunting the progress of nature. Extinction is as natural as any other process. Who are we to get in the way of it? After all, imagine if the dinosaurs hadn't gone extinct. We wouldn't even be here.
We'd be on the moon plotting the destruction of those terrorist thug dinosaurs with Newt.
Who is the man-- thanks for the typical Progressive Hate
Mammoths died in part as a result of global warming, you know, caused mainly by Americans.
Seriously, since the Mammoths died, the worlds temperature has risen and risen with occassional blips downward 1300-1600 AD "Little Ice Age".
Or ffrom 1100 - 1300 (for 200 years), a Warm Up allowing Farms in GREENLAND.
The Ice Age ended 15,000 - 9000 years ago. Yet we are still Colder than the average temp from 9,000 BP to today globally.
...so the reason why they didn't manage to survive by walking North is?
Heck, how did pre-industrial "Americans" cause "global warming"? Campfires? They didn't smelt metal, they didn't burn oil/gas...
Most ridiculous statement...ever.
1) Scientist estimate that the population of the entire earth during the Quaternary Glaciation (Ice Age for idiots like Roger Dum-jet.) was less than a quarter million.
2) They had just mastered making camp-fires. Do you really think they were causing global warming? All quarter million of them? Less people spread over the entire earth than the population of a mid-sized modern city?
3) Thank you for specifying them as "Americans". You realize the mammoth fossil they are trying this on came from Siberia, right? Feel free to blame the America's for the extinction of the dinosaurs while you are at it.
4) Predation by humans as a cause of their extinction was a THEORY that has largely been disproved for the simple reasons that A) the aboriginal population of all the America's numbered in the low tens of thousands at most at the time and B) their extinction has been connected to the Quaternary Extinction Event that applied to all megafauna, not just Mammoths.
5) Saying they "died in part..." is like saying I'm responsible for the extinction of mosquito because I hit a few dozen with my windshield driving to work today.
6) Finally, stupid people like you make me SO mad and I hope the cloned Mammoth stomps on your head. :p
I do to.
Rather than dwelling on whether or not this species can be recovered, we should look at this as a step closer to understanding how creation/procreation works and of possibly saving ourselves from extinction. Science fiction today, science fact tomorrow.