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comment by mk
mk  ·  4325 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: ‘Adventurous’ Woman Needed as Surrogate for Neanderthal Baby

    We have lots of Neanderthal parts around the lab. We are creating Neanderthal cells.

I searched PubMed, and couldn't find any evidence that anyone has successfully cultured Neanderthal cells yet. It looks like they are closing in on the Neandethal genome, but they don't have a conclusive sequence just yet.

I'm very interested in seeing a wooly mammoth some day, and I think that is far more likely to happen. Aparrently, a group got mammoth nuclei to take in some mouse oocytes in 2009. However, I would think that elephant oocytes would be the optimal choice when it comes to a real attempt to bring them back.





rozap  ·  4325 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What are the primary challenges associated with getting a wooly mammoth to be a reality? That would be very cool to see.

mk  ·  4325 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Aside from getting the nucleus to take in an embryo and getting a healthy fetus to keep through gestation, I would guess that the biggest hurdle is the quality of the DNA. Low quality DNA will sooner keep a cell running than reconstruct a living creature. Even if we know the proper complete sequence, I don't think we yet have the ability to synthesize a replacement for genomic DNA. However, there is an abundance of mammoth tissue out there to pick from.