After two years of intense research and more than $1 million in donations received, the team members of the Mammoth Genome Project Pennsylvania State University have been the first in the history of science to publish the genome-wide sequence of an extinct animal.
"One of the things that is most difficult for humans to manipulate is time," said Stephan Schuster, Project Leader for the Mammoth Genome Project PSU. "Time is constant. If you manage to retrieve information from the past and bring it to the future, it is a huge accomplishment."
The research team hopes by studying the genome sequence of the woolly mammoth, it can learn about extinction in general, said Webb Miller, Project Leader for the Mammoth Genome Project PSU.
"We're learning in the mammoth case that there were actually two groups of mammoths with pretty different genes," Miller said. "One of the groups died out in Siberia more than 50,000 years ago, before the contact of human beings. Since they apparently died out without being killed off, we're hoping we can learn one of the reasons for its extinction by studying the genome."
By understanding how certain animals became extinct, the research team hopes to save current animals on the brink of extinction, said Aakrosh Ratan, team member of the Mammoth Genome Project PSU.
After publishing their research in June, researchers in the Mammoth Genome Project PSU are currently sequencing the DNA of the Tasmanian devil, which is dying out because of a certain kind of cancer.
"The real thrust of our work now is to help save animals from going extinct," Miller said. "We like to sequence species that are extremely threatened to try to stop their extinction from happening."
However, as of now, the resurrection of extinct animals remains science fiction, Ratan said.
"We are not at the point in science where you can resurrect extinct animals immediately, but I don't know what will happen in the future," Ratan said.
Although researchers are not actively pursuing the possibility of resurrecting the woolly mammoth, they believe with the rapid development of technology, the mammoth could be resurrected in the not-too-distant future, Schuster said.
"I used to say that would be stupid and impossible, but I'm not saying that anymore," Miller said.
Through the use of ancient DNA from hair extracted from Siberian woolly mammoth mummies that ranged from 20,000 to 60,000 years old, the team was able to sequence the genome of the mammoth.
Ancient DNA from hair was chosen instead of ancient DNA from bones because hairs are easier to decontaminate. When hairs are submerged in bleach, the old bacteria and fungi are eliminated while the DNA is kept safe, Miller said.
When dealing with extinct animals, scientists have previously worked with extremely short sequences of DNA that were about 500 pieces long, but the researchers have extended that sequence to about four billion DNA bases.
"We have shown that it's possible for small groups of scientists to sequence entire genomes," Miller said.
