Colossal Biosciences, a company mainly known for intending to genetically engineer proxies for several iconic extinct species, announced this week that it has made major steps towards the de-extinction of the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger.
The thylacine is often referred to as the Tasmanian tiger or the Tasmanian/marsupial wolf, despite tigers and wolves being felines and canines, respectively, while the. To de-extinct the animal, the company plans to genetically edit the cells of a fat-tailed dunnart, the thylacine’s closest living relative, into the nearest thing they can get to the Real McCoy.
In a release announcing the new genomic milestones, Colossal co-founder and CEO Ben Lamm said that the team is “pushing as fast as possible to create the science necessary to make extinction a thing of the past.” “By changing a single base in a 3-billion base pair genome, we can make the endangered northern quoll go from completely susceptible to cane toad toxin, to among the most resistant species to this toxin on earth,” said Andrew Pask, a member of Colossal’s Scientific Advisory Board and a researcher at the University of Melbourne’s Thylacine Integrated Genomic Restoration Research Laboratory , in the same release.
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