5 Years And We Will Have Cloned Mammoths (now with added dodo!)

Galvasean

Well that's the plan anyway if a team of Japanese scientists get their way.

Japanese researcher, Teruhiko Wakayama of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, succeeded in cloning a mouse from the cells of another that had been kept in deep-freeze for 16 years.

Based on Wakayama's techniques, Iritani's team devised a method to extract the nuclei of mammoth eggs without damaging them.

"If a cloned embryo can be created, we need to discuss, before transplanting it into the womb, how to breed (the mammoth) and whether to display it to the public," Iritani said.

"After the mammoth is born, we will examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors."

Read more here.

Yitzhak Rabin

I borrowed Wibbs' crystal ball for that one!

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056106728

Rubecula

By purest coincidence this was mentioned on a tv show here yesterday. The mamoth was a small example of one of the systems in trying to clone dinosaurs. Hmmm!

Anyway apparently as DNA is so frgile it seemed to be unlikely, however in reovering a fossil leg bone it was found to be too heavy to remove from the site in one piece, and was carefully broken into pieces to get it back to base.

The pieces were then taken to a university lab to reassemble. Using electron microscopes they found small pieces of fossil matter and cleaned them up, by the process of cleaning a l;ab assistant noticed that the fossilised tissue became pliable.

Further tests were done on other bones in a museum with the same results. Again under electron microscope it was found that the bones contained small organic cells that were too small to become fossilised but were and are used to build bone tissue.

It has not gone much further as far as I know, but if the tissue is still pliable they seem to think that DNA may be obtainable in microscopic quantities. If this is so, artificial means can increase the amount of DNA.

The surmising is along the lines of if there is enough produced, it may be possible to clone a dinosaur of some description.

Personally I am dubious about this, but you never know until it is actually attempted.

Using this "supply" of DNA and devolving 'suitable' birds they said they may be able to clone something in the not too distant future.

Well thats what they said anyway.

*sniff*:pac:

enda1

I think they should clone the dodo first. Then I'd like to eat one to see what all the fuss was about.

Galvasean

enda1 wrote: »

I think they should clone the dodo first. Then I'd like to eat one to see what all the fuss was about.

You'd probably be disappointed. reports from the time say that the dodo was not a tasty bird.
"journals are full of reports regarding the bad taste and tough meat of the dodo, while other local species such as the Red Rail were praised for their taste"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo#Extinction

Yitzhak Rabin

As with a lot of science, it needs a commercial application before it could ever be widely adapted.

This is one of those ideas that definitely has a commercial possibilities. From a natural prehistoric reserve, to something like the hunting preserves in South Africa. While I am not a fan of trophy hunting, there is no doubt that the money that it brings in has helped to prevent vulnerable species from going the way of the mammoth in recent years.

There are plenty of loonies in the US who would pay HUGE money to shoot a wooly mammoth!

darjeeling

I think 5 years could be quite optimistic. The mouse research succeeded in getting clonable DNA from frozen brain and blood in which the cell and nuclear membranes had been mashed up due to freeze-damage. Despite this cellular damage, the extracted DNA was intact enough to allow cloning in new egg cells. The mammoth DNA, though, will be a hundred to a thousand times older, and could be so sheared that there won't be viable chromosomes to allow the technique to work.

Even if it could work, I'm not convinced we should go ahead and make mammoths. I don't know what purpose it would serve other than making some new zoo curiosity.

enda1

What's their idea for gestating the beast?

Will they bring it to mid term then cut it out of a host animal or something? I imagine there is no mammal big enough to carry a mammoth foetus to full term.

darjeeling

enda1 wrote: »

What's their idea for gestating the beast?

Will they bring it to mid term then cut it out of a host animal or something? I imagine there is no mammal big enough to carry a mammoth foetus to full term.

I think it's whack it in an elephant and see what happens.

Galvasean

Wooly mammoths were only marginaly bigger than modern African elephants. Of course, in terms of gestation it doesn't take much difference to really mess things up.
When the bucardo was cloned it only lived a few minutes as it was deformed from not fitting in the womb properly.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090210-bucardo-clone.html

aidan24326

Galvasean wrote: »

You'd probably be disappointed. reports from the time say that the dodo was not a tasty bird.
"journals are full of reports regarding the bad taste and tough meat of the dodo, while other local species such as the Red Rail were praised for their taste"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo#Extinction

Their meat was said to be downright unpalatable, and they were apparently clubbed to death for 'sport' rather than food.

Manach

I read this book awhile back 'Mammoth: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant' by Richard Stone. It also predicted cloning but it was a more long term time-period, with the difficulties of finding viable DNA emphasised.

Galvasean

aidan24326 wrote: »

Their meat was said to be downright unpalatable, and they were apparently clubbed to death for 'sport' rather than food.

I think the main reason for their rapid extinction was the introduction of pigs to their habitat. Wild pigs made a habit of raiding the round based dodo nests. Dodos reproduced very slowly (one egg per year between a breeding pair, if at all) to avoid overpopulating their small island habitat. It only took a relatively small number of eggs per year being eaten by pigs to have disasterous effects on the dodo population.

Capt'n Midnight

yekahs wrote: »

As with a lot of science, it needs a commercial application before it could ever be widely adapted.

you could have mammoth flavored crisps

maybe their hair might have interesting thermal properties

you could ride them on polar bear hunts , they are big enough that they could probably swim in the cold water too ?



I doubt they could be domesticated but that would be cool



I want the Giant Sloths to be cloned.

MacraPat

I think the auroch'd be great to see about. Free range beef anyone? It's genetic importance would be enormous to all kinds of cattle farming.

Mickeroo

THe South Koreans and Russians have just struck a deal to actually carry out the research and clone a mammoth. Part of me thinks its slightly unethical but at the same time a huge part of me would like to see it:

"The first and hardest mission is to restore mammoth cells," another Sooam researcher, Hwang In-Sung, told AFP. His colleagues would join Russian scientists in trying to find well-preserved tissue with an undamaged gene.

By replacing the nuclei of egg cells from an elephant with those taken from the mammoth's somatic cells, embryos with mammoth DNA could be produced and planted into elephant wombs for delivery, he said.

Sooam will use an Indian elephant for its somatic cell nucleus transfer. The somatic cells are body cells, such as those of internal organs, skin, bones and blood.

"This will be a really tough job, but we believe it is possible because our institute is good at cloning animals," Hwang In-Sung said.

Full article here: http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-skorean-russian-scientists-clone-mammoth.html

Adam Khor

Mickeroo wrote: »

THe South Koreans and Russians have just struck a deal to actually carry out the research and clone a mammoth. Part of me thinks its slightly unethical but at the same time a huge part of me would like to see it:



Full article here: http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-skorean-russian-scientists-clone-mammoth.html

Yep, the dilemma of anyone into this stuff :pac:

I too would love to see it, but considering how long the cloned Ibex lasted...

Rubecula

I may be wrong but I think every cloned animal to date has had some problems. Imperfect copies you might call them. Yes they may clone a mammoth but it won't be identical to mammoths of the past, I am certain there will be problems.

Capt'n Midnight

at a guess the host cell may be a little incompatible with the nucleus / DNA. Might need to swap in some mitochondria too ?

Might the offspring have less problems as you move further from host cells ?


We have the same DNA in all our cells (unlike insects) but it's how it's expressed that determines what sort of cell it is. If this wasn't the case then we could just sequence the DNA of exotics and play it back later on.

With a lot more money we could sequence proteins from the extinct animals too to see if any changes in the way the DNA was expressed, perhaps you could modify the host DNA to more closely match what the clone needed ?

Niggus

Could this technology one day resurrect Neanderthals too?

Mickeroo

Niggus wrote: »

Could this technology one day resurrect Neanderthals too?

If they found some preserved organic remains, absolutely. They may already have?

dlofnep

Perhaps if they find a Neanderthal perfectly frozen at some point, it could be possible?

darjeeling

I'm skeptical about this. The Japanese team involved did successfully clone mice from tissue frozen in a lab for 16 years (link). However, the mammoths they'll be using will be of the order of a thousand times that age, and so it's likely the DNA will be too fragmented and degraded for viable replication and cell division. Only one way to find out though...

Capt'n Midnight

darjeeling wrote: »

the mammoths they'll be using will be of the order of a thousand times that age, and so it's likely the DNA will be too fragmented and degraded for viable replication and cell division. Only one way to find out though...

just splice it with frog DNA, what's the worst that could happen ? :pac:


we can sequence DNA and generate it , not a full genome yet and the problem of the histones

darjeeling

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

we can sequence DNA and generate it , not a full genome yet and the problem of the histones

Like Venter's synthetic mycoplasma genome? That technology has a very long way to go to scale from a 1Mb, simple circular genome to a complex 3Gb one. I think cloning the frozen material is a more likely bet for the foreseeable future.

Capt'n Midnight

indeed , and to reiterate the point the expression of DNA is influenced by it's environment not just it's sequence.

would like to see Stellers Sea Cow and some of the large birds and Megalania

if it turns out that the Great Auk is gone for ever should penguins be brought north to replace their ecological role

on a related note would polar bears survive in the Antarctic ? though I doubt the researchers there would appreciate them.


Then there are the real ethical problems

Some women wanted to have Otzi's baby

I'd imagine the same might be true for Neanderthals

Wibbs

dlofnep wrote: »

Perhaps if they find a Neanderthal perfectly frozen at some point, it could be possible?

Probably, but serious moral issues ahoy. They were human in nearly every way and the more we find out about them, the more human they appear to have been. Plus they may look very different to the current reconstructions and may act differently too. More aggressive possibly. Who knows. I'd love to meet one, but not at any price as it were.

steddyeddy

Galvasean wrote: »

Well that's the plan anyway if a team of Japanese scientists get their way.



Read more here.

Ill add the neanderthal is also barring some ethical implications the neanderthal should also be considered for cloning. Theres no biological reason that this cannot be done.

steddyeddy

Adam Khor wrote: »

Yep, the dilemma of anyone into this stuff :pac:

I too would love to see it, but considering how long the cloned Ibex lasted...

I hate to say it but the first time I walked into a lab ethics took a step backward! I suspect its the same for most involved in this field.

steddyeddy

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

indeed , and to reiterate the point the expression of DNA is influenced by it's environment not just it's sequence.

would like to see Stellers Sea Cow and some of the large birds and Megalania

if it turns out that the Great Auk is gone for ever should penguins be brought north to replace their ecological role

on a related note would polar bears survive in the Antarctic ? though I doubt the researchers there would appreciate them.


Then there are the real ethical problems

Some women wanted to have Otzi's baby

I'd imagine the same might be true for Neanderthals

This and to be honest we dont know enough about epigenetics imo to fully predict gene expression in cloned animals.

To illustrate heres two cats which are clones of each other ie contain the same genotype but aparantly a different phenotype.

Galvasean

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Some women wanted to have Otzi's baby

I'd imagine the same might be true for Neanderthals

Good look to them.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2009/04/20-02.html

Capt'n Midnight

Not an issue thanks to the medical profession acting unethically
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34826186/

The most dramatic findings were in China, where 46 percent of births reviewed were C-sections — a quarter of them not medically necessary, the report said.

...
The WHO, which reviewed nearly 110,000 births across Asia in 2007-2008, found 27 percent were done under the knife, partially motivated by hospitals eager to make more money.

That mirrors similar results reported by WHO in 2005 from Latin America, where 35 percent of pregnant women surveyed were delivering by C-section.

30 percent of U.S. births are C-sections
In the U.S., where C-sections are at an all-time high of 31 percent, the surgery is often performed on older expectant mothers, during multiple births or simply because patients request it or doctors fear malpractice lawsuits.

steddyeddy

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Not an issue thanks to the medical profession acting unethically
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34826186/

Shocking findings indeed but captain but hopefully it wouldnt be the medical profession doing the cloning. I would say biologists have and had a lot to answer for in the past also.

Capt'n Midnight

steddyeddy wrote: »

Shocking findings indeed but captain but hopefully it wouldnt be the medical profession doing the cloning. I would say biologists have and had a lot to answer for in the past also.

I was actually referring to the number of c sections done for reasons other than necessity

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0530/maternity.html :eek:

At St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny, over 43% of first-time mothers have a Caesarean section birth. The lowest rate is seen at the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street in Dublin, where just over 22% of first-time mothers have Caesarean sections.

steddyeddy

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I was actually referring to the number of c sections done for reasons other than necessity

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0530/maternity.html :eek:

Sorry man I read it wrong. The amount of hysterectomies performed by a certain surgeon is also one for concern

Capt'n Midnight

steddyeddy wrote: »

Sorry man I read it wrong. The amount of hysterectomies performed by a certain surgeon is also one for concern

slightly sickened , I had thought we had left the dark ages* behind


*Michael Neary

Adam Khor

Ok, I took some time to read this calmly, and seriously, dudes? They say "After the mammoth is born, we will examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors."

How the hell are they going to study its "ecology"? They may be able to study its anatomy, physiology etc, but its ecology? They would need the original Pleistocene ecosystem for that- they would need more mammoths, and they would need all the creatures that lived alongside mammoths. One single, miserable clone is not going to bring back the "ecology" of the mammoth. And I seriously doubt they are going to release it to the Siberian forests to study its new ecology there...

I also don´t understand how the clone would help understand why the species became extinct, but what do I know? I'm no expert in any fields.

steddyeddy

Adam Khor wrote: »

Ok, I took some time to read this calmly, and seriously, dudes? They say "After the mammoth is born, we will examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors."

How the hell are they going to study its "ecology"? They may be able to study its anatomy, physiology etc, but its ecology? They would need the original Pleistocene ecosystem for that- they would need more mammoths, and they would need all the creatures that lived alongside mammoths. One single, miserable clone is not going to bring back the "ecology" of the mammoth. And I seriously doubt they are going to release it to the Siberian forests to study its new ecology there...

I also don´t understand how the clone would help understand why the species became extinct, but what do I know? I'm no expert in any fields.

I never clocked that myself Adam. Its a weird one alright but then Im no ecologist either.

Mickeroo

Probably a bad translation, they might not have been speaking english at the conference or whatever it was.