Year: 2022

"DE-EXTINCTION is not just about reversing extinction ... but about helping to prevent extinction. It “could help revolutionize conservation,” ...'That’s because de-extinction can be used to combat what’s called the “extinction vortex” ... animal populations fall, inbreeding ... and species go extinct by loss of genetic variation." http://lnkd.in/b_VedHC View in LinkedIn

CHURCH BRAND REVIVALISTS. "Writer and environmentalist Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, and his wife Ryan Phelan, founder of the genetics company DNA Direct ... Working with Harvard biologist George Church, they figured out a possible way to revive passenger pigeons." These birds once were bountiful in the US." http://lnkd.in/bfZ5a84 View in LinkedIn

THE PASSENGER PIGEON'S DECLINE "was impossible to ignore, because as recently as the 1880s, it was the most populous vertebrate in North America. It made up as much as 40 percent of the continent’s bird population. On Sept. 1, 1914, Martha, the last captive passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati Zoo." http://lnkd.in/bTtn5st View in LinkedIn

PASSENGER PIGEON HUNTED TO EXTINCTION. "In 1813, John James Audubon saw a flock—if that is what you call an agglomeration of birds moving at sixty miles an hour and obliterating the noonday sun—that was merely the advance guard of a multitude that took three days to pass." Old journals are full of these accounts. http://lnkd.in/bKqgWbk View in LinkedIn

CHURCH SUPPORTS PIGEON REVIVAL. "In February 2012, Church hosted a symposium at Harvard Medical School called “Bringing Back the Passenger Pigeon.” Church gave a demonstration of his new genome-editing technology, and other biologists and avian specialists expressed enthusiasm for the idea." http://lnkd.in/bTtn5st View in LinkedIn

PIGEON REVIVAL IS NOT TRIVIAL, "somatic cell nuclear transfer, can be used only on species for which we have cellular material. For species like the passenger pigeon that had the misfortune of going extinct before the advent of cryopreservation, a more complicated process is required." http://lnkd.in/bTtn5st View in LinkedIn

PASSENGER PIGEON REVIVAL, is a case study of a particularly ambitious and complex procedure, with no guarantees of success, since the entire process has never been done before, only parts along the way. Bird revival has special challenges because of the nature of eggs. A stepwise review of the plan. View in LinkedIn

FIRST STEP IN REVIVAL OF PASSENGER PIGEON. "The first step is to reconstruct the species’ genome. By comparing the fragments of passenger-pigeon DNA with the genomes of similar species, researchers can assemble an approximation of an actual passenger-pigeon genome." http://lnkd.in/bTtn5st View in LinkedIn

PIGEON SECOND STEP. "Next the genome will have to be inscribed into a living cell. This is even more complicated than it sounds. Molecular biologists will begin by trying to culture germ cells from a band-tailed pigeon. Bird cells can be especially difficult to culture." http://lnkd.in/bTtn5st View in LinkedIn

THIRD STEP FOR PIGEON "They will replace chunks of band-tailed-pigeon DNA with synthesized chunks of passenger-pigeon DNA, until the cell’s genome matches their working passenger-pigeon genome" using Church's "MAGE ... “evolution machine” ... introduce ... millions of years of genetic mutations within minutes." http://lnkd.in/bTtn5st View in LinkedIn