Russian - Korean Collaboration to Ressurect the Wooly Mammoth

The hunt to resurrect the wooly mammoth is now in full swing and we can be sure that other laboratories are rushing to do the same thing.  It is the obvious low hanging fruit in the species resurrection stakes and the one everyone want to see happen.  It has already been stated that we are now less than five years away and success will bring huge resources to bear.

I am expecting to see the Pleistocene menagerie fully resurrected and I am also expecting a good effort to restore the thousands of species lost in the past two centuries as humanity and its pests soured the island refugia around the world.  All those samples stuffed in museums may well turn out to be the bridge back from species extinction.   If the mitochondrion is sufficient for a resurrection as this article seems to indicate, then even a tanned hide may do the job.

After all that, a little dinosaur resurrection if it turns out to be possible, will be a bonus.  Note that we can likely use crocodile eggs to pull that one off.

Woolly mammoth could walk Earth again as Russians agree to ship Siberian remains to Korean cloning scientist

Controversial scientist created world's first cloned dog

Remains found in Siberia last year to be used 

Research 'could begin this year'

By ROB WAUGH

PUBLISHED: 13:03 GMT, 13 March 2012 | UPDATED: 01:15 GMT, 14 March 2012

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2114359/Woolly-mammoth-walk-Earth-Russians-ship-Siberian-remains-Korean-cloning-scientist.html

A woolly mammoth preserved in permafrost in Siberia could walk the Earth again after 10,000 years, after Russian academics signed a deal with a controversial Korean scientist to clone the animal.

Hwang Woo-Suk – who created the world’s first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005 – will implant the nucleus from a mammoth cell into an elephant egg to create a mammoth embryo. 

The embryo will then be implanted into an elephant’s womb. The Koreans say research could begin this year. 

South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk (L) shakes hands with Vasily Vasiliev (R), vice director of North-Eastern Federal University of Russia's Sakha Republic, after signing an agreement on joint research to clone a mammoth

A painting by Friedrich Wilhelm Kuhnert, (1865 - 1926) shows woolly mammoths - the creature could walk the Earth again for the first time in 10,000 years thanks to the new research

Vasily Vasiliev, vice rector of North-Eastern Federal University of the Sakha Republic, signed the deal with Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation this week.

The agreeement follows the discovery of mammoth bones with well-preserved bone marrow in Siberia last summer.

Hwang Woo-Suk is a controversial figure some of whose research into human cloning was shown to be fake. 

But since then, his institute has successfully cloned other creatures such as cows, dogs and coyotes. 

'The first and hardest mission is to restore mammoth cells,'  Sooam researcher, Hwang In-Sung, told AFP. 'This will be a really tough job, but we believe it is possible because our institute is good at cloning animals.'

The Korean biotech foundation said research would begin this year, as soon as the Russians ship remains. 

The Russian academics are already in negotation with Japan's Kinki University for joint research next year aiming to recreate the giant mammal. 

Mammoths became extinct about 10,000 years ago.

But the discovery in August in Siberia has increased the chances of a successful cloning.

Global warming has thawed ground in eastern Russia that is usually almost permanently frozen, leading to the discoveries of a number of frozen mammoths, the report said.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2114359/Woolly-mammoth-walk-Earth-Russians-ship-Siberian-remains-Korean-cloning-scientist.html#ixzz1p4QRen4V