After more than 10,000 years, a U.S. biotech start-up has reported bringing the dire wolf back from extinction.
Based in Texas, Colasant Biosciences reported on Monday that its researchers have effectively produced three modern dire wolf pups: two six-month-old males called Romulus and Remus and a three-month-old female called Khaleesi.
Based on two ancient dire wolf DNA samples, the firm accomplished this utilizing gene-editing and cloning technologies.
"I could not be more glad of the team. This enormous milestone marks the beginning of many more to show that our end-to---extinction technology stack performs," he said.
Our scientists produced healthy dire wolf puppies by extracting DNA from a 13,000 year old tooth and a 72,000 year old skull.
"It was once remarked, 'any sufficiently sophisticated technology is indistinguishable from magic'. Today, our staff will reveal some of the magic they are creating as well as its wider influence on conservation.
De-extinction is the procedure by which blood cells from a living grey wolf, the closest relative of the dire wolf, are genetically altered at 20 separate places, according to Colasant researchers.
From a domestic dog, that genetic material was transferred to an egg cell; subsequently, the embryos were moved to surrogates for gestation and ultimately successful birth.
The chief science officer of Colasant, Dr Beth Shapiro, said: "Our unique method of iteratively improving our ancient genome in the absence of a perfect reference establishes a new benchmark for paleogenome reconstruction.