Thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) was the top of the food chain until Asian dingoes introduced 4000 years ago drove the dingoes off Australia and into Tasmania. The Thylacine were seen as pests, blamed for livestock losses so the Europeans killed all that remained. The last Thylacine died in 1936 but researchers from the Australian museum and a molecular Biologist from Taronga Zoo believe that a new one could be born by 2010. The scientists have extracted DNA from bone marrow and organs of museum specimens that have been preserved. They cannot yet reproduce the entire genome and what they have recovered is badly damaged. The molecular biologist from Taronga Zoo, Karen Firestone, is using DNA repair enzymes to repair the damaged genes and attempt to replicate the fragments before linking them into full strands. She then copies these using common DNA replication techniques. If they can successfully produce the artificial chromosomes they will transfer them into egg cells from a related species such as the Tasmanian devil. The eggs will then be implanted into a female host in the hope that we will eventually have a self-sustaining population of Thylacines reintroduced into the wild.
Svitil K. Bringing The Tasmanian Tiger Back From The Dead. Discover [serial online]. October 2003;24(0):16. Available from: Science Reference Center, Ipswich, MA. Accessed March 30, 2009.
Guynup S. Resurrecting Extinct Animals. Popular Science [serial online]. February 2006;268(2):54. Available from: Science Reference Center, Ipswich, MA. Accessed March 30, 2009.
Ryan Dewar
