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Neanderthals like the one depicted in this museum reconstruction died out tens of thousands of years ago, but geneticist George Church says it may be possible to bring their DNA back into the gene pool.
Pioneering Harvard geneticist George Church suggests that the day is coming when we'll want to reverse-engineer the Neanderthal genome and pass the now-extinct creatures' advantages to our own progeny. All that's needed would be an "extremely adventurous female human" to serve as a surrogate mother.
During an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Church was asked whether a Neanderthal baby would be born in his lifetime. "That depends on a hell of a lot of things," the 58-year-old replied, "but I think so."
Is he serious?
Well, Church is serious about the promise of synthetic biology, which involves tinkering with the chemical components of DNA to add artificial twists to the code of life. Microbes could be tweaked to produce better biofuels or harness solar power. White blood cells could be rejiggered to fight cancer or other diseases, using a tamed form of the HIV virus. And extinct species could be brought back to life through a combination of cloning and genetic engineering.
The species-resurrection scenario would involve inserting the reconstructed nuclear genetic material from the extinct creature into the living egg of a closely related present-day species, sparking the cell into dividing, and then implanting the resulting embryo into the womb of a female from the present-day species. It's been discussed in the context of using elephants to bring back mammoths, or chicken hens to bring back dinosaurs.
Technically speaking, the progeny wouldn't be a mammoth or a dinosaur, but rather an elephant or chicken exhibiting the genetic traits of their long-departed relatives. A similar technique could be applied using Neanderthal DNA: Chunks of reconstructed genetic code could be used to reprogram human cells and produce increasingly Neanderthal-like stem cells.
"If we do that often enough, then we would generate a stem cell line that would get closer and closer to the corresponding sequence of the Neanderthal," Church told Der Spiegel. "We developed the semi-automated procedure required to do that in my lab. Finally, we assemble all the chunks in a human stem cell, which would enable you to finally create a Neanderthal clone."
In the current political, ethical and technological climate, there's no way this scenario could come to pass. Researchers are closing in on a high-quality Neanderthal genome, but they're not quite there yet. The Russian and Korean scientists behind the mammoth-cloning project say they're years away from doing their experiment. And the idea of getting humans involved in cloning experiments is still the stuff of science fiction.
However, Church's point is that the Neanderthal genetic code may be so valuable that the hurdles will be worth overcoming.
"Neanderthals might think differently than we do," he told Der Spiegel. "We know that they had a larger cranial size. They could even be more intelligent than us. When the time comes to deal with an epidemic or getting off the planet or whatever, it's conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial."
Theoretically, it might be possible to create a whole population of neo-Neanderthals and see how they differ from the usual breed of Homo sapiens, Church said.
"Curiosity may be part of it, but it's not the most important driving force," Church said. "The main goal is to increase diversity. The one thing that is bad for society is low diversity. This is true for culture or evolution, for species and also for whole societies. If you become a monoculture, you are at great risk of perishing. Therefore the re-creation of Neanderthals would be mainly a question of societal risk avoidance."
Does the idea of Neanderthal surrogate motherhood sound sensible when he puts it that way? Or does it still sound like a science-fiction nightmare? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.
More about the DNA frontier:
- How sex with Neanderthals made us stronger
- Neanderthal DNA lives on in some of us
- How synthetic biology will change us
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.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. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. 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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This is a horrible thing to do, and it will have repercussions that will outlast our generation.
OMG, now this is just a friggin creepy story, this researcher sounds like a nut case!
no worse than raising Russell Brand, I'm sure....
Actually I think this really is science fiction and am skeptical that nuclear DNA can survive for thousands of years in burials. Mitochondrial DNA maybe. But might be hard to distinguish from bacterial DNA. "Neanderthal DNA" might be off someone's skin cells shed onto the fossil?
If they can do this, it will be one big hairy deal!
All one has to do is look at Ron Perlman, Mike Tyson and a lot of other people to understand Neanderthals didn't go anywhere. They just assimilated with other species of Man. A total non story. And a horrible idea. Modified HIV virus? Give me a break. Just look at the carnage scientists caused by modifying some other strain of virus into HIV and unleashing it upon a duped public under the Swine Flu outbreak cover of 1977. Just check it out. Aids was discovered about the same time as the swine flu scare. These jokers are hell bent on creating a real world Resident Evil!
I've noticed a few abusive responses here - good on you for showing your intellect. Some of my objections to the possibility of this becoming a reality stem from compassion, some from wonder and some from cynicism.
First, I also wonder (like a previous poster) how one would explain to the part Neanderthal child that they were created merely for the sake of a scientific experiment. Most teenagers want to 'fit in'. They don't want to be made to seem different. If the geneticists managed to engineer the genes in a way that would create life, then that child would have noticeably different features (if science is fairly accurate).
I also wonder about possible issues surrounding the pregnancy. Even if there are very tiny differences between our genes and that of a Neanderthal; what about possible issues with the host rejecting the foreign pregnancy, thus producing a miscarriage? Then I also wonder about how that could affect the woman down the line (if at all). Also, what if the unborn baby ended up killing the mother through some kind of poisoning, or mass complications at labor time? Would 40 weeks be the same standard pregnancy term for a Neanderthal baby? I'd hazard an assumption that if the surrogate was successful, the human body would do what it normally does in preparation for birth, by producing milk and such. So who is to say that 40 weeks is long enough for a Neanderthal baby, if their brain is supposed to be larger?
Then there is the question of: How will this REALLY impact our knowledge and stem the tide of the 'monoculture' that the scientist is fearful of and that could bring about our extinction? If we were more worried about monoculture, we would look at ceasing factory farming and be more concerned about diversifying crops and looking into furthering cures for ailments we continually require assistance with. Monoculture indicates no diversity in genes - but just look around: how many families do you see that have diversified their own gene pool by marrying white with black, Hispanic with white and so forth?
What is the true aim of said scientist? Is it to fluff one's own feathers to say "I know how to do this. I can do this. With the support of a woman, I can do this (ethics or no ethics)." Or is there something deliriously exhilarating that could be garnered from such an endeavor? And then, finally, is it worth it? I don't think of a Neanderthal baby born of a surrogate mother as being merely a Neanderthal, but rather a child with a future and that child would get to look forward to heaps of tests over its lifespan -however long or short that may be. What kind of illnesses did Neanderthals have? What kind of things were they susceptible to? Could it actually make things worse? And then, there is of course the problem that this would be the first Neanderthal baby in a long time. We'd need more for reproduction (although that would then produce 'monoculture'). Would it become okay to begin medical testing on neo-Neanderthals for the advancement of the human race? When you say yes to it (the experiment) once...will it happen again?
People have discussed cross-breeding of animals and such and I agree, there are parallels there, but often cross-breeding would occur naturally anyway. It can also ensure that bad genes become recessive and less likely to cause pain and suffering in later life than if various breeds of dogs stuck to their own breed. But, ultimately when it comes to animals in captivity that are either cross-bred or pure-bred, they're reliant on humans to make conscious caring decisions. Unfortunately, often those decisions are the result of how to make money. Great breeds yield more money. Would this be the result of neo-Neanderthal ? Money? Would they be a valid life form in the eyes of Science? Or would they be just another Rhesus monkey whom one could inflict Ebola on to see how they react?
Death_of_Common_Sense:
That was an extremely ethical and thought-provoking commentary about this story. This leads me to believe you came to this site by accident...
LOL - most intelligent response I can come up with, Mark.
I had another idea while I was thinking about the possible reasoning behind such an experiment: Some people, if given the choice would like to live forever. No matter how science fiction it may seem at times, the truth is that people are trying to make that happen with life supporting mechanisms, changes in diet, replacement parts (knees, elbows, hips, shoulders, heart valves and transplanted organs) and of course drugs. But they don't stop the death switch that occurs when our bodies start to age and die. So, by conducting such research and experiments, I wonder if it's more about finding the key to immortality than the key to intelligence? Either way, it's genetics, which some will argue is actually derived from Eugenics. If we were to continue down this path, then we can simply sort the intelligent specimens among us out from those that have trouble grasping basic concepts (such as co-habitation in a peaceful environment), but that would then go against this particular scientist's idea of diversity, so that wouldn't work (at least from what Church was getting at).
(To Death of Common Sense)
you might want to try to look up and watch "Pedigrees Exposed",I believe it is a BBC television film and is about overbred dogs that have lots of genetic based problems.
What if neandrathals were born 50 pounds to start out with. surprise.
We already have enough Neanderthals running around all over the place. The world doesn't need anymore.
Snooki would be perfect
I thought this was a news website and not a website based on speculation or conjecture... doh! Leave this to the scientific journals.
If you are from Pittsburgh........you've definitely already had sex with Neanderthals.
In the immortal words of Malcom from Jurassic Park, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
While not truly a homo sapiens, I think this idea falls under the ban on human cloning. But, it might be permissible to create some Neanderthal cell lines, for research only, without growing a full organism.
Mr. Church is a great example of a "scientist" who has let technological progress run away with him. If we are serious about testing DNA from extinct creatures, we would first create initial steps that would allow us to test the genes in a controllable environment--not in the womb of a living person! It's science like this that scares the crap out of those of us who believe in some sort of ethics, which apparently there are less and less of these days. Thank Dog we'll all be computerized borg-like machine clones by the turn of the next century. Who needs nature, I mean really?
Boyle, must be bored to think this one up.
Karl Rove's birth already accomplished this.
"Theoretically, it might be possible to create a whole population of neo-Neanderthals and see how they differ from the usual breed of Homo sapiens, Church said."
We already have them they call themselves Republicans. So no, there won't be any improvements, look what they have accomplished so far................... Nothing.
We brought back Neanderthals several years ago. We call them Republicans.
why? i thought one is born every minute in this great land US of A..... how else could they breed such a dumb congress.
"rejiggered"???