strangebiology: strangebiology:George Church on Mammoths George Church is a professor of Genetics

strangebiology: strangebiology: George Church on Mammoths George Church is a professor of Genetics at Harvard University and one of the world’s leading geneticists. He recently published a book with Ed Regis called Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. Church and his team are using CRISPR, a gene editing technology, to insert parts of mammoth DNA into the Asian elephant genome. Ideally, this one day result in a whole population of cold-resistant, hairy pachyderms suited for life in the arctic–animals that are physically, behaviorally, and genetically very similar to the extinct woolly mammoth. This interview has been edited and condensed for length. How is your lab hoping to make a mammoth embryo? People go into the Siberian ice to get mammoth remains, and you can get broken DNA, and you can use a sequencing device to turn that into a computer data version of the mammoth genome. You put all the little parts together to make a complete mammoth genome, or you can take important parts of the genome and put them on an Asian elephant’s DNA. Then we put the sequence into an Asian elephant’s egg and get it to start multiplying. In what ways will the mammoth be different from an elephant? Keep reading Reblogging my interview with George Church because mammoth resurrection is back in the news. I have to point out that, while cloning mammoths appears to be trending, not a lot has changed. Except, Church now says that he wouldn’t want to use an elephant to gestate a mammoth fetus, he’d want to use an artificial womb, if anyone ever invents one. Specifically, a womb large and effective enough to gestate a baby pachyderm for more than a year.  Should we? -- source link

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