File photo shows a Tasmanian Tiger female joey preserved since 1866 in Australian Museum in Sydney, Australia. (Xinhua/Australian Museum)
Australian scientists are developing technologies to enable the extinct thylacine, popularly known as the Tasmanian Tiger, to live once more.
SYDNEY, March 8 (Xinhua) -- One of Australia's most iconic animal species, Tasmanian Tigers, which disappeared more than 80 years ago, could be brought back to life in a "de-extinction" project.
The University of Melbourne (UM) epigenetics Professor Andrew Pask has just launched the Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research (TIGRR) Lab to develop technologies to enable the thylacine, popularly known as the Tasmanian (or Tassie) Tiger, to live once more.
"I have always been obsessed with the Tassie tiger," Pask told Xinhua. "It's such an amazing animal, looking like a wolf, but having a pouch like a kangaroo. I remember, as a kid, seeing the black and white footage of the last animal in the Hobart Zoo and being captivated by it."
That lifelong fascination was one of the motivations that drew Pask to the fast-evolving field of de-extinction.
File photo taken on 1936 shows the last thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) in Hobart Zoo, Tasmania, Australia. (Xinhua/Australian Museum/Harry Burrell)
It is a scientific field that has raised ethical and financial concerns from some commentators who question whether resources could be better used on animal conservation rather than restoration. Some ask whether reintroducing a predator such as a thylacine into an ecosystem could hurt surrounding animals.
Pask, however, argued the benefits of such projects outweigh the disadvantages, saying the predators "eat the weaker and sick animals in the food chain which means those animals have healthier and stronger population".
"Removal of the apex predator has a lot of negative impacts. This can be seen with Tasmanian devils which developed a facial tumor disease that almost wiped them out," said Pask.
"The Tasmanian habitat has remained largely unchanged, providing the perfect environment to reintroduce the thylacine. So it is very likely its reintroduction would be beneficial for the whole ecosystem," he said.
Graphical photo shows the joey skeletons of a Tasmanian Tiger. (Xinhua/TIGRR Lab)
Pask said the science team's biggest breakthrough so far had been to sequence the thylacine genome, which "provides a complete blueprint on how to essentially build a thylacine."
From that genome, they have developed stem cells from a closely related living marsupial, the fat-tailed dunnart.
He said the next step was to compare the two species' genomes to see where they are different -- and then go into the dunnart cell and "edit" its code to change it to thylacine DNA code.
"We are optimistic that in 10 years we could have a thylacine engineered cell, which is then ready to create a whole living animal from," he said. "Our goal is to bring back the thylacine but we will also apply our advances to conservation science to assist with breeding programs to prevent other marsupials from suffering the same fate as the Tassie tiger."
File photo taken on 1936 shows the last thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) in Hobart Zoo, Tasmania, Australia. (Xinhua/Australian Museum/Harry Burrell)
Pask said the project would not have been possible without the support of the charitable group, the Wilson Family Trust, which recently gave 5 million Australian dollars (about 3.7 million U.S. dollars) to revive Tassie tigers.
Pask still has some mighty big plans after this one. "Mammoths, I think, would be amazing, and they also played a large role in stabilizing the environment in which they existed," he said. ■
