Bringing back the extinct

Dr. Stephen Juan
National Post
May. 03, 2006

IS IT POSSIBLE TO BRING BACK AN EXTINCT HUMAN SUCH AS A NEANDERTHAL MAN THROUGH CLONING?

This is certainly theoretically possible. But in trying to do so there would be technical problems all along the way. There would also be numerous ethical and moral issues that would have to be satisfactorily resolved. If after all of this and the cloning of a Neanderthal. pictured below, were to get a green light, the steps to be followed would be similar to these:

- Obtain a reliable DNA sample: This would require a thorough search for cells from the to-be-cloned Neanderthal. This would include cells from the bones and teeth. Neanderthal hair and skin cells could be used if available. But since hair and skin make poor fossils compared with bones and teeth, none survive for the Neanderthal. Extracting healthy DNA fragments from the nucleus of cells of Neanderthal bones and teeth would be very difficult to do.

- Rebuild the genome: This would involve the reassembling of the broken DNA of the Neanderthal using the genome of a related living human as a guide.

- Swap DNA: This would involve removing eggs from the ovaries of a living human and replacing their nuclei with the restored genetic material from the Neanderthal.

- Stimulate the eggs: The genetically engineered restructured eggs would have to be treated with chemicals or perhaps with electric current to fuse the nuclei with the eggs and trigger cell division.

- Implant the embryo: After the desired cell division has started and progressed to form an embryo of about 200 cells, the embryo is transferred (implanted) into the womb of a living woman where it is carried to term just as would be any other human embryo.

- Birth: The surrogate mother would give birth to a Neanderthal baby in the normal way that humans give birth. The Neanderthal baby would grow up into a Neanderthal Man or Neanderthal Woman.

- Stephen Juan, PhD, is an anthropologist at the University of Sydney. He recently appeared in Everything You Need to Know About the Brain on the Discovery Channel.