Steven Spielberg stupendous direction and Michael Crichton’s touch of reality to his fiction has to make a movie mesmerizing. But “The Lost world – Jurassic park “not only did catch attention of movie goers and movie haters (like me), it also invaded the labs of scientific community creating a ruckus. Jurassic park has lived beyond the theatres and shows. The life of the script is based on how Dinosaurs- the extinct huge animals - are conceived in some lab back yard and peeps into consequences that lay in store of that action. The movie echoed “Extinction is not permanent”.
Recently there was news about re-living yet another extinct species .Yeah you are right it’s the mammoth. As in the movie –Jurassic Park- the strategy seemed to be identical.
- Collect the DNA material of mammoth.
- Sequencing the DNA to get the genomic code.
- Using the genome code to create chromosomes.
- Finding the closest relative to the extinct creature.
- Getting the Egg from the female relative.
- Ir-radiating the DNA in the female relative egg.
- Injecting the DNA of extinct species into the female egg.
- Surrogating the egg in the female relative body.
The Paleontologist sadly, failed at the very first step. The hope of getting fresh and undamaged soft tissues of mammoth, which was caved in by the ice, was shattered when they extracted nothing better than decayed bones. The possibility of recovering DNA strands from the chunk of the icy soil containing the mammoth carcass is remotely possible. Another possibility highlighted by the movie itself was to search for the DNA strand in some insect. But unlike the movie, till date there has been no technological advance to extract the mammoth or dinosaur’s DNA from the insect’s DNA. So, the chances of seeing mammoth or a Dino will be a dream for some time.
Moving to the next step “DNA sequencing “. Though research is zooming in these fields in “Applied Bio systems” and “Sorenson Development” lab’s, pin pointing the genome from strands of DNA, given the permutation and combination of these strands is painful both in terms of money, resources and time. And if we are lucky it might give birth to some other organism rather than what we are setting out for, which is irony. Only a chance in billion will stand out representing the correct genome from the assembling of DNA strands.
Once this vague, illusionary step is done, we move on to mapping the extinct species to some close relative which still breathes. In case of mammoth it “should be “elephant.
Scientists suggest an Asian would be a better one. But are elephants the closest relative to Mammoth? Probably yes, probably no. There has been uncountable number of times when reports of huge animal’s like elephants being seen were voiced from jungles of Africa some half century back. With time they too might have gone. What could be interesting is to discover and find these creatures being labeled the closest relative to mammoth?
Even if we are right in stating that Mammoth and elephants are next to one another in the species list, the real hurdle begins after ir-radiating the female elephant egg and then injecting the strand of chromosome in the egg , but what about surrogating ? Neither the structure nor the gestation characteristics of elephants could accommodate with that of the mammoth.
Dark as it might seem, I am still hopeful that with more involvement of IT in biotechnology could solve most of the problems. The strength of IT in storing, modifying and collecting biological data like DNA sequence and protein structures could enhance the computational analysis and ease the genome comparisons. Advancement in in-vitro fertilization is already taking place and creation of climate suiting the extinct animals or even using sophisticated tissue culture could help the mammoth adapt to changed habitats (This was done for American chestnut blight). All these hypothetical steps
“Could“ realize the possibility of seeing mammoth roaming back again in the vast lands of Siberia. What really matters is –Should we?
