Melbourne Uni Scientists Are Trying To Bring Back The Tasmanian Tiger From Extinction

In a move that brings us one step closer to Jurassic Park, University of Melbourne scientists have announced a million-dollar project to resurrect the extinct and beloved Tasmanian tiger, AKA the Thylacine.

The Thylacine has been extinct since the 1930s. However, a US biotech company, Colossal Biosciences, has announced they will invest $10 million in a University of Melbourne project to bring back the Tasmanian tiger. The project and partnership is being led by Professor Andrew Pask, leader of the Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research (TIGRR) Lab. Professor Park said that TIGGR will concentrate efforts on establishing reproductive technologies tailored to Australian marsupials using Colossal’s resources.

“With this partnership, I now believe that in ten years’ time we could have our first living baby thylacine since they were hunted to extinction close to a century ago,” Professor Park shared in a statement.

The tiger was Australia’s only known marsupial apex predator. They’re believed to have gone extinct due to the excessive hunting and habitat destruction caused by colonisation. Through the intervention of European settlers, the Thylacine population was reduced from an estimated 5000 to extinction in less than 100 years.

Aboriginal peoples had many names for the Thylacine including coorinna, loarinna, laoonana, and lagunta. Along with evidence provided by fossils, confirmation that Thylacines lived on the mainland comes from old Aboriginal rock paintings as far north as the Kimberley.

A project funded by the National Museum was the first to attempt to genetically engineer a Thylacine back in 2005. However, the project was abandoned after the team could not recover a sufficient amount of DNA.

Texan biotech company Colossal believe they have a sufficient amount of DNA that, in combination with more advanced technology, will succeed where the National Museum project failed. On Colossal’s website, the company provides a timeline illustrating how they plan to resurrect the thylacine.

The plan includes completing the Thylacine’s genome sequence using its closest living relatives, computational stem cell editing, and eventually the creation of an embryo. The end goal proposed is to rewild the thylacine in its natural habitat in Tasmania within a decade. Investors for their project also include Chris Hemsworth, of all people.

And yes, this is more or less the science portrayed in Jurassic Park. But where the Jurassic Park dinos were resurrected using frogs to complete the DNA needed for genetic engineering, the University of Melbourne and Colossal intend to use closer living relatives to the thylacine like the Tassie Devil. In a statement, Colossal chief executive, and tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm, said “we take DNA from existing species that are the closest relatives, in the case of the thylacine it’s the fat-tailed dunnart”.

Colossal also has similar plans for the Woolly Mammoth — yes, the woolly mammoth. The company is hoping to resurrect and rewild the mammoth to the Arctic Tundra within the next 5 years. It’s an ambitious project that comes with critics. There are those that believe biotech isn’t yet advanced enough to achieve de-extinction and that resources would be better directed elsewhere.

Secondly, there are plenty who believe the Thylacine is not extinct and that efforts would be better spent searching. There have been numerous alleged sightings of Thylacines reported in the past decade alone. Though these sightings have often been debunked, the Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia has led claims of the Tasy tiger’s survival since the group’s founding in 2017.

Whether the team at the University of Melbourne will be successful in their quest to bring the beloved marsupial predator back from extinction only time will tell. Will life find a way?