Revive & Restore

Have you ever imagined what it would be to have dinosaurs living with us in this planet? May be in the forest outside the city? Revive & Restore is one initiate involved in this. Well they may not have thought that far; but they are doing their bit towards this fiction story. As per their website, Revive & Restore’s mission is to enhance biodiversity through the genetic rescue of endangered and extinct species. They have brought together the fields of molecular biology and conservation biology to try and make this happen. They are also working on bringing back from extinction: passenger pigeons, woolly mammoths, heath hens (a New England grouse), and great auks (a north Atlantic “penguin.”). The initiative is working on genetic rescue for Asian elephants (from a lethal virus), black-footed ferrets (from lethal plague and inbreeding), and Hawaiian native birds (from avian malaria). These projects include sequencing and assembling DNA (ancient, cryopreserved, and living), bioinformatic analysis, genome editing, creating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), cross-species cloning, work with avian primordial germ cells, and captive breeding.

“Gone”— Isabella Kirkland’s painting of 63 species that have gone extinct since the 1700s.

Look what Stewart Brand, Co-founder, Revive & Restore, has to say on The dawn of de-extinction.