Will the concept of science-fiction genetic experiments to recreate the long-extinct dinosaur species used in the plot of the film "Jurassic Park" ever be possible?
The plot of the film "Jurassic Park" directed by Steven Spielberg is based on a simple, but currently unrealistic concept of laboratory testing of the reproduction of long-extinct dinosaur species.
The collected genetic material of dinosaurs from the blood of a mosquito sunken for millions of years in amber is the main material on the basis of which extinct dinosaur species are recreated.
The genetic material obtained in this way introduced into the germ cell of modern reptiles in the film gives the possibility of reproduction of extinct reptile species.
This idea is based on modern research and genetic experiments carried out in laboratories, whose aim is to create, for example, new crop varieties or produce drugs for specific diseases.
However, the reproduction of long-extinct species such as dinosaurs is still not possible because the genetic material undergoes deep fragmentation over millions of years.
The genetic chain of chromosomes breaks down into very short fragments. So short that there is no information on how to assemble them into whole chromosomes and the lack of enzymes that would be able to fragment these fragmented dinosaur DNA pieces into whole chromosomes.
But the technology of genetic research is developing. The whole genomes of various species of animals, plants and other life forms are studied. The knowledge base of genotypes and related species is successively growing in the Big Data resources created for this purpose.
Therefore, the question arises: Will the fantastic research concept applied in the plot of the film "Jurassic Park" ever be possible? Will it be possible to recreate long-extinct animal and plant species with the help of subsequent generations of research in the field of genetics in the future?
Will it be possible to create a real Jurassic Park in the future, within which dinosaurs will run among the vegetation composed, among others, of flowering and woody ferns, horsetail and ferns, or the restoration of the ecosystem from millions of years ago?
Or maybe a man should not even try this type of other than present ecosystems to play?
Is this also a matter of ethics? Is it not threatening modern ecosystems to restore ecosystems over millions of years, ie consisting of many long-extinct species of plants and animals?
Please, answer, comments. I invite you to the discussion.
It is definitely possible with advances in genetics and biotechnology
Hi there!
That's actually a very nice question!
First of all, I am not the best person to answer this, but I would suggest you the book "How to clone a Mammoth" by Beth Saphiro. This is a great reading that answers a lot of your questions!
The main issue with the idea of using fossils to obtain genetic material is that "fossils" usually have organic parts substituted by minerals (processes called 'permineralization' and 'recrystallization'). Therefore you cannot extract DNA from these fossils because everything was substituted by minerals. It is also true that recent studies seem to have found traces of soft tissues in extremely well preserved fossils, but this is still extremely far from allowing to obtain the genome of dinosaurs (if you are interested in this, check the works of Mary Higby Schweitzer --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Higby_Schweitzer#cite_note-18).
However, the movie played it quite smartly on this topic, suggesting that the blood was actually encased in the amber, therefore not really fossilized. Nonetheless, in the book cited above, they explain how they tried to obtain even the DNA of insects from amber (I seem to recall they were working on bees?) but always failed. Again, a team of researchers managed to found "emoglobin-derived porphyrins" in a mosquito encased in amber (Article Hemoglobin-derived porphyrins preserved in a Middle Eocene b...
), but this is still far from Jurassic Park, still.What you can extract DNA from, is frozen material. That's how they managed to obtain the full genome of the wholly mammoth (in 2015) from frozen specimens unearthed from the ice of Siberia. And yes, there is already who is thinking of using it to inseminate elephants in order to be able to have their "Pleistocene Park" (I now it's in Siberia but I do not remember additional information, again, check the book!).
This obviously generated a lot of discussion on the idea of how ethical it would be to use elephants to breed mammoth.
Sorry for the long answer, but I truly find this topic extremely exciting!
I believe nothing is impossible. Just a matter of time but keep in mind the posting of Kenneth.
Creating dinosaurs from "dead" matter is like Frankenstein. It will be outlawed in the future because so many things could go wrong. There must be better projects available where good hard earned money could be spent. As Ken Towe stated above, "Why would someone want to recreate a dinosaur?"
As you stated yourself, the genetic material is to fragmented to contain any useful information. It does not matter how much technological development one throws at it, if the necessary information is not available, one cannot recreate dinosaurs.
Now this situation is quite different for Pleistocene animals that are preserved in the permafrost. In this case, enough genetic Information is available and their closest living relatives are similar to recreate them. I, personally, do not think this would be ethical, but I fear it there will be a Pleistocene Park at some point in the future.
Another point of this discussion is the viability of the technique to insert DNA of a dead cell inside a live cell to reproduce them. Is there experiments to create live cells from Isolated DNA of dead cells? As we know there are not successful in this mater with vertebrates. This question is relevant to solve some problems in animal conservation using DNA of local extinct populations to create new individuals from tissue DNA (nos live cells).
"Is there experiments to create live cells from Isolated DNA of dead cells? As we know there are not successful in this mater with vertebrates."
I beg to differ. The last natural Pyrenean ibex died in 2000. She was, however cloned in 2003. The clone was born alive and survived for several minutes, before dying from lung defects. As such, the Pyrenean ibex became the first taxon ever to become "unextinct". Although the clone did not survive into adulthood, researchers did create live cells from the isolated DNA of dead cells.
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