The cloning of the extinct mammoth is getting closer and closer. Now, a prestigious geneticist at Harvard University (USA), George Church, has succeeded in inserting 14 mammoth genes into the DNA of a living Asian elephant .
Mammoths became extinct thousands of years ago but thanks to the fact that the DNA of the woolly mammoth was discovered intact in specimens frozen in Siberia, the path to cloning is possible (in fact, both muscle tissues and blood were discovered in perfect condition under the ice of the Siberian island of Liajovski, northeast of Russia). However, the leitmotif of this research is not the cloning of the woolly mammoth but the reconstruction of its genome by studying the DNA of these animals preserved in the Arctic.
After reconstruction of the genome, it is replicated and a copy is inserted into the genome of the mammoth's most modern relative: the Asian elephant. The result of this genetic experiment is none other than making the cells of a modern elephant carry mammoth DNA . Obviously, we will not obtain any mammoths in the laboratory, but it does mean advancing in this future cloning process.
How did they get the mammoth DNA into the living elephant? Thanks to a gene technique called CRISPR that allows the reproduction of exact copies of genes. Although the research is still preliminary, Church hopes to advance a little more before presenting his conclusions in the most prestigious scientific journals in the world such as Nature or Science .
