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A biotech company that\u00a0aims to resurrect lost creatures\u00a0said Tuesday it has hatched live chicks in an artificial environment \u2014 a development that was met with mixed reviews from scientists and critics of its de-extinction mission.<\/p>\n
Twenty-six baby chickens \u2014 ranging from a few days to several months old \u2014 were born from a 3D printed lattice structure that mimics an eggshell, according to Colossal Biosciences.<\/p>\n
Colossal previously announced it had genetically engineered living animals to resemble extinct species, including\u00a0mice with long hair\u00a0like the woolly mammoth and wolf pups\u00a0that take after dire wolves.<\/p>\n
Colossal\u2019s CEO Ben Lamm said the artificial egg technology could one day be scaled up to genetically tweak living birds to resemble New Zealand\u2019s extinct South Island giant moa, whose eggs are 80 times the size of a chicken\u2019s and would be difficult for any modern bird to lay.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to build something that nature has done a pretty good job of developing and make it better and scalable and even more efficient,\u201d Lamm said.<\/p>\n
Independent scientists say the technology, while impressive, lacks some components to be truly considered an artificial egg. And they said the idea of reviving extinct beasts is likely impossible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey might be able to use this technology to help them make a genetically modified bird, but that\u2019s just a genetically modified bird. It\u2019s not a moa,\u201d said evolutionary biologist Vincent Lynch with the University at Buffalo.<\/p>\n
To hatch the chicks, Colossal scientists poured fertilized eggs into the artificial system and placed them in an incubator. They also added calcium, which is normally absorbed from the eggshell, and imaged the embryos\u2019 development and growth in real-time.<\/p>\n
Scientists say Colossal has designed an artificial eggshell with a membrane that allows the right amount of oxygen to get in, just like a real egg. But other components of an egg \u2014 like temporary organs that form to nourish and stabilize the growing chick and remove waste \u2014 weren\u2019t included.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not an artificial egg because you\u2019ve poured in all the other parts that make it an egg. It\u2019s an artificial eggshell,\u201d said Lynch.<\/p>\n
In decades past, researchers have used cruder technology to create transparent eggshells that hatched chicks from plastic films or sacks. Such technologies are useful to study chicken development and glean insights that can also be applied to other mammals and even humans.<\/p>\n
\u201cProducing a chick from an artificial vessel is not necessarily new,\u201d said Nicola Hemmings, who studies bird reproductive biology at the University of Sheffield. Hemmings is not part of the Colossal team.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a long road ahead before Colossal attempts a moa resurrection using this artificial egg system. Scientists first need to compare ancient DNA from well-preserved moa bones to genomes of living bird species. And they need a bigger eggshell.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to wait till we were ready to birth a giant moa. We actually wanted to start working on the engineering challenges for surrogacy and birth now,\u201d Lamm said.<\/p>\n
Even if Colossal succeeds in creating a tall bird similar to the moa, some scientists are concerned about what happens after \u2014 including how it would survive in a landscape that looks nothing like that past.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big challenge is, what environment is this animal going to live in?\u201d said bioethicist Arthur Caplan with New York University\u2019s Grossman School of Medicine.<\/p>\n
Such de-extinction efforts may make more sense with currently endangered species, where scientists could preserve sperm and egg cells from living members to attempt to bring more back, Hemmings said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy personal interests lie more in preserving what we\u2019ve got than trying to bring back what is already gone,\u201d Hemmings said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n
#Jurassic #Park #isnt #movie #anymore #deextinction #startup #hatches #live #chicks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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