Resurrecting Extinct Species Using CRISPR Technology (4K)

have you ever wondered what the world will be like if we are able to bring some of the extinct species back to life on earth no we are not talking about bringing back dinosaurs to the world because the outcome of that would be catastrophic to both animals and humans by extinguished species we mean types of exotic animals that were beneficial for ecosystem that helps nature and humans to have a healthy environment and prevents many damages to the nature the extinction of these species in recent centuries has mostly been related to extreme behavior of humans regarding the nature poaching of animals especially the exotic ones which were in danger of extinction for the purpose of selling their skin fair task antler and even in some cases for making medicine and in many cases illegal hunting of some of endangered animals because of their meat caused the many of these species to become extinct these improper practices backfired and led to interrupting ecosystem and in some cases its damage has been irreversible some of the famines happened around the world was a result of killing the hunter animals such as some type of birds which would eat the crop eating insects and prevent the damage to crops which would make our food recently some biologists and scientists alike have been working to resurrect a number of these species which are beneficial to the ecosystem by using crispr technology these people are going to put their effort to resuscitate various kinds of extinct animals such as the mammoth passenger pigeon gastric broading frog bucardo aurochs heath hen and thylacine also known as tasmanian tiger this video focuses on the three of aforementioned species mammoth passenger pigeon and thylacine and investigates how these creatures are going to be brought back to existence by a crispr method also the benefits these animals are bringing to earth and its ecosystem will be explained [Music] what is crispr and how does it work crispr is a method of altering dna sequences a modifying gene function it can be used to correct genetic defects treating illnesses and preventing the spread of diseases also the crops and foods can be improved utilizing the crispr technology the method gives freedom to scientists to slice dna to add and subtract genes at field then the dna is cut cells natural repair mechanisms involve and in order to fix itself it would mutate a project conducted by a stanford university created two methods to alter and adjust dna one approach is to attach two cuts back together this leads to appearance of errors so nucleotides accidentally inserted or deleted which result in mutations and possibility of gene disruption in the second method in order to fix the break sequence of nucleotides would be filling in the gap to make this happen the cell uses a short strand of dna as a template the dna template of choice can be supplied and created by scientists therefore they are able to make any gene they want and they can rectify and correct a mutation genome editing involves changing the sequences of the genomes of various organisms by encoding a series of messages and instructions within their dna sequences thereby changing the message which lead to creating an enhanced or new organism let's see how the crispr is going to help bringing back mammoth passenger pigeon and thylacine the mammoth the massive bulky and woolly beast lived for 400 000 years in the green steps of eurasia and north america its tusk was so powerful that could bring down huge trees and carry them around easily the woolly mammoth were grazers and would create grasslands by bringing down the trees the event extinct around 4 000 years ago and their remains can be found at the frozen edge of northern russia and in siberia the fact that mammoths remain buried under ice in one of the coldest places in the world has helped preserving some of the mammoth tissues such as fur and a skin muscle for decades this has enticed scientists the idea of resurrecting mammoth because they believe that these remains may contain traces of dna the essential ingredient for the reborn of mammoth however time has been the enemy of dna over the past 4 thousand years cosmic radiation and environmental factors have caused enormous damage to the mammoth dna adding to the aforementioned reasons the lack of progress in research of resurrecting mammoth has hindered the possibility of bringing the beast back however with introduction of crispr and other similar technologies the idea of bringing the animal back to life once again as enlivened as previously explained crispr technology helps scientists eliminating obstacles regarding gene editing hence they can find different ways to alter and create genomes of different species a harvard university biologist and crispr pioneer george church is the biggest proponent of the mammoth revival currently he works with a non-profit organization revive and restore which its goal is to enhance biodiversity utilizing the power of genetic engineering in his laboratory at harvard he created inexpensive vase to read dna sequences making the job easier to bring back ancient mammoth with little dna traces that remained from the animal these methods can extract enough dna from the damaged samples to assemble a complete map of the mammoth genetic code from mere fragments if a code can be reconstructed and a scientist would know how the code used to look like gene editing techniques should be able to rebuild it current gene editing technology led by george church and his team can create mammoth genetic sequence as it was ten thousand years ago however he wants to create mammoth by upgrading a closest link to the creature which is asian elephant believe it or not 99.96 of asian elephant and mammoth dna is similar to each other and this is the reason church wants to use asian elephant as a starting point of resurrecting the mammoth asian elephant also is as big as mammoth and the only differences between the two are mammoth having thick holy skin and big cork screw tasks in order to transform an asian elephant into a mammoth handful of features must be added to the elephant which make it possible for the animal to live and tolerate extremely cold climates such as arctic tundra which was the habitat of mammoth church and his team identified genes in the mouth that create the traits mammoth had such as extra fat dense hair and improved oxygen carrying capabilities in the blood all of these flares helped the beast survive the frozen climate of north george church claims that he already did create a hybrid in the lab by attaching mammoth ancient genes into modern asian elephant cells though the research has not yet been published in order to make mammoth a reality a viable asian elephant embryo has to be produced that carries the mammoth genes church is stated in 2017 that development could happen in a couple of years the embryos are not going to be created by an asian elephant mother rather the hybrid fetus would be formed and grown inside artificial wombs that could sustain and birth the hybrids although the technology is years away from coming to fruition but their rapid progress in the field is promising the main reason for bringing back the mammoth is in regard to its capability for creating grasslands in its habitat as previously mentioned mammoth tusks are very strong and can easily knock down trees in result converting that place into grasslands having grasslands prevent greenhouse gases from being released into the atmosphere by altering the landscape other benefits of grasslands include protecting soil from wind and water erosion creating inexpensive and high quality food for livestock and wildlife and providing suitable habitats for wildlife when mammoth revived it will be sent to a protected park in siberia known as pleistocene park and it will join other herbivores in the region [Music] the passenger pigeon the bird once lived in billions in the united states now a single trace of it cannot be seen these beautiful birds with males having bright red eyes and females with orange eyes and iridescent feathers with shades of green pink and burns on the male's neck and breasts where exotic birds that went extinct in 1914 the last of them was a female pigeon named martha which died in the cincinnati zoo the main reasons behind the passenger pigeon's extinction their extreme hunting and habitat destruction the culture of haunting these pigeons came from misunderstanding about the role of the bird in regard to ecosystem and habitat they lived in people of that time believed that the pigeons were harming the agriculture however this opinion was completely false the importance of this specie of pigeon for the nature strengthens scientists determination to resurrect the passenger pigeon one of the scientists who believes this can become a reality is ben nowak he is the lead scientist at conservation non-profit revive and restore the organization that also george church works at ben nowak since his childhood has been fascinated by native birds but seeing a picture of the passenger pigeon as a teenager has captivated him since then he thinks passenger pigeon is the apex of all types of pigeon and very different than the rock pigeons which inhabit all cities around the world similar to church's approach to resurrect mammoth the initial attempt to revive the bird will not be one-to-one clone of pigeon instead passenger pigeons jeans will be embedded into a modern day relative one of the closest relatives to passenger pigeon is american band tailed pigeon therefore to start the process of passenger pigeons revivalism the one with the most compatible genome must be selected as a basis for resurrection creating the hybrid of passenger pigeon is going to be a very difficult assignment hundreds of atoms have to be made by scientists to finally be able to create passenger pigeons hybrid to achieve it an american pigeon's egg is injected with a gene known as cast 9 which works as a pair with crispr the cast 9 gene builds a blade to cut dna into precise pieces consequently it enables scientists to splice the blade into the sperm cells of the male pigeon embedding the blade in pigeon's jeans makes altering the pigeon's dna an easier endeavor the outcome of bringing back passenger pigeon to the nature is far greater than many people would think the crucial influence the bird has on nature historic biosphere forest cycling and regeneration is irrefutable reviving the bird would not only benefit the nature but also would be advantages to humans because when the entire ecosystem works in systematic manner then we can morally and ethically harvest the products it offers to us [Music] tasmania an island state located below south coast of australia once lived the carnivorous marsupial called thylacine also known as tasmanian tiger because of dark strifes it had around its lower back the animal was the pride of tasmanian aboriginals the beast was like a symbol for the island of tasmania and its inhabitants the tasmanian tiger's story is similar to passenger pigeon excessive hunting of the animal due to mismanagement and misunderstanding of humans at the turn of 20th century thylacine was believed to be a culprit for engorging farmers livestock this situation was so maddening that even government offered up bounties for killing the tiger and within 100 years of human settlement every single one of the animals their haunted and thylacine went extinct the last thylacine benjamin died in captivity in 1936 because of a steady advancement genetic engineering technology has had during the last two decades some scientists have attempted to resurrect thylacine the most prominent project was done by paleontologist michael archer in 1999 in that year he got tenure as director of the australian museum which is australia's oldest museum and a very well-known and highly respected scientific institution he funded 80 million australian dollars into a project attempting to clone the iconic tasmanian tiger however this project had its opponents and naysayers they argued that the project was a waste of time and money and called it impossible and fantasy others believed such investments should be ushered and directed into something more beneficial to the nature such as conserving aboriginal ecosystems which are struggling and protecting a species that are on the brink of extinction archer's project failed in 2005 due to lack of support from scientists alike and gene editing technology not being advanced enough that was before crispr transformed and revolutionized gene editing fast forward to 2017 a team of researchers from melbourne university led by andrew pasque were able to reconstruct tylasine's entire genome by plucking the dna from the thylacine pups preserved in jars of alcohol [Music] pask says quote we have that entire blueprint of what it used to take to make a thylacine that is your first step in any the extinction project end quote although to go further to recreate the tasmanian tiger you have to look for its closest relative and unlike mammoth and passenger pigeon which have close animal relatives tylerthing does not have one the only one animal that would slightly resemble us is the nombat but nonbats it ends and titusin is carnivore nevertheless pass and his team are going to sequence the non-bats genome to investigate how similar the species are applying crispr gene editing technology can make the job easier and in the far future may be able to transform a nombat to tylusine benefits of resurrecting the tasmanian tiger for its habitat can be compared to reintroducing wolves to yellowstone park in 1995 with arrival of wolves to the park the ecosystem there changed dramatically it helped flourishing yellowstone park's biodiversity as beavers returned to the region for the first time in decades moreover due to increased elks predation by walls park's landscape underwent massive transformation which as a result restored native flora of yellowstone park tasmania's nature is wild and green also it is sparsely populated about 50 of the island's natural resources are protected by low and this has helped the island's coastal heath wetlands and forests to remain largely unchanged since the time tylosin went extinct the tasmanian ecosystem is already well prepared to welcome the tiger pask believes that nature needs another apex predator such as thylacine he states that by looking at other group of placental mammals many apex predators such as bears tigers lions and killer veils can be seen in contrast marsupials do not have any apex predator the only one that this group of animals had in the past was the thylacine apex predators are key elements in an ecosystem and bringing back tasmanian tiger is a social obligation he concludes not all of the extinctions that have been happening to species caused by humans the most notable example is dinosaurs because at that time not a single soul was existed to cause harm to those mesozoic eras beasts something unknown happened to them that wiped them out that could have been caused by an asteroid or could have been a dramatic change in ecosystem the reason is still unknown nowadays extinction is still happening in nature many animals are on the brink of extinction from insects to giant veils which can be caused directly by humans loss of genetic diversity and other natural and environmental factors such as change in the animals habitats this will continue to be happening in the future and that is the nature of the life itself unless radical changes occur which would be using technologies such as crispr to make the extinction a tool to overcome the problem our current approach to conserve the species is not sufficient to prevent the loss of animals and plants lives as ben nowak states biotechnology has changed the very idea of extinction after all if we have the genetic code of a specie and we can implant that code into a cell is the specie really extinct it lives on not in the physical form we are used to but in the strands of dna locked inside the cell in the future we may have the technology to transform dna into an animal which was extinct it is still a lot to do to be able to correctly read ancient dnas and scientists still must improve crispr cotton-based genetic engineering but the most important question is that are we ready to change our skeptical and ethical mindset regarding these types of technologies that is the most challenging part for resurrection of a species if we as a species embrace the idea then we can make it a reality you were in the spotlight i am hidden reaching out for your hands can you feel me now trying to give a sign that i'm right here [Music] cause when i am without [Music] but you don't seem to care about my still i can be without you [Music] without you [Music] can you feel me now so i've been hoping for a new just melody get me some kind of remedy and i think i found it in your mind but the way that you know me is not [Music] right

Channel: Future Science

Views: 1,796

Rating: 4.7090907 out of 5

Keywords: Resurrecting of Extinct Species Using CRISPR Technology, Resurrecting of Extinct Species, Resurrection, Extinct Species, Woolly Mammoth, Passenger Pigeon, Thylacine, Tasmanian Tiger, Gene Editing, CRISPR, CRISPR Technolgy, Genetic Engineering, Extinct Species Resurrection, Ecosystem, Earth, Humans, DNA, CAS9

Id: 6X3sWBrZZss

Length: 26min 41sec (1601 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 18 2020