Researchers in Australia and the US are embarking on a multimillion-dollar project to bring back the extinct tilassine.tilacinus kinocephaly), also known as Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf.
The last known specimen of this carnivorous marsupial died in the 1930s.
The team behind the project claims it can be regenerated using stem cells and gene-editing technology, and the first tilac could be reintroduced to nature within 10 years.
But other experts are skeptical and suggest that the extinction was just science fiction.
Tylasin was named the Tasmanian tiger because of the stripes on its back, but it was actually a marsupial, an Australian mammal species that raises its cubs in a pouch.
A group of Australian and American scientists plans to take stem cells from a living marsupial species with similar DNA and then use gene-editing technology to “bring back” the extinct species or something very close to it.
It would represent a remarkable achievement for researchers attempting to do so and would require a series of scientific breakthroughs.
“I believe we may have our first living tilacin calf in 10 years since they were hunted to extinction nearly a century ago,” says Professor Andrew Pask, who led the research at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
The Tasmanian tiger population declined tens of thousands of years ago when humans arrived in Australia and dingoes, another wild dog breed, appeared.
In the end, the marsupial roamed freely only on the island of Tasmania and was hunted to extinction.
The last Tasmanian tiger in captivity died at Hobart Zoo in Australia in 1936.
If scientists manage to resuscitate the animal, it will be the first “extinction” event in history, but many experts outside the project doubt the science behind it.
“Extinction is a fairytale science,” Jeremy Austin, associate professor at the Australian Center for Ancient DNA, told the Sydney Morning Herald.
According to him, the project is “to make the media more interested in scientists and less in doing serious science”.
The idea of bringing the Tasmanian tiger back has been around for over 20 years.
In 1999, the Australian Museum began a project to clone the animal, and since then there have been several attempts periodically to extract or reconstruct living DNA from specimens.
This latest project is a partnership between scientists from the University of Melbourne and Texas-based company Colossal, USA.
The US company made headlines last year with plans to use similar gene-editing technology to bring the woolly mammoth back to life, a technological feat that has yet to be realized.
– This text has been published actually inside https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/geral-62574142
source: Noticias
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