Scientists led by Hwang Woo-suk, a South Korean cloning expert, are “confident” they can clone a long-extinct animal, after extracting cells from a 42,170-year-old preserved body, The Siberian Times reports.
An unnamed source at North East Federal University in Yakutsk, Russia told the website that a joint Russian-South Korean research team “are confident” they will clone the Lenskaya, a species of horse that went extinct in the Stone Age. A nearly perfectly preserved foal that died at one or two weeks old was unearthed in Siberia last year, and the research team plans to extract cells from the body and implant a cloned embryo in a Korean horse.
“Cells are grown in a special nutrient medium,” Russian researcher Dr. Lena Grigoryeva explained. “At first the material is milled and put in a CO2 incubator for a few days. Three to four days later the cells are checked and the nutrient medium is replaced.”
“There are seven researchers involved in the project on the Korean side and everyone is positive about the outcome,” said Grigoryeva.
"The Korean horse will fit in perfectly," she added. "They have been used in cloning for a while and the technology is mastered to perfection. Besides, the Korean horse is quite ancient too.”
The team already has made more than 20 attempts in the past month, and the Siberian Times’ source said that “the attempts will continue until the end of April this year.”
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