US company announces progress toward resurrecting the extinct dodo
Oct 14 (Reuters) - A US biotech company says it is making progress toward its goal of resurrecting the dodo, the famous flightless bird with a large hooked beak, and returning it to its native Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, where humans drove it to extinction in the 17th century.
Dallas-based biotech firm Colossal Biosciences announced on Wednesday that it is nearing completion in its efforts to resurrect the dodo, an extinct flightless bird that once inhabited the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. The company used a newly developed AI platform called GenoMorph to pinpoint genetic changes responsible for the dodo's distinctive craniofacial traits.
Colossal is planning to introduce these traits into the cells of its closest living relative, the Nicobar pigeon, through gene-editing. The company has already identified genetic targets for beak size and shape in a list of about 2,300 candidates and is validating them in the lab. Colossal aims to hatch dodo chicks in the near future, but a specific timeframe has not been announced.
The dodo became extinct due to the arrival of humans and the introduction of invasive species, such as rats, on Mauritius in the 17th century.
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