posted 31-05-2002 11:19            

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THE FOLLOWING IS THE OPINION OF AN EXPERIENCED GENETICIST. LIKE THE FIRST REPONDER, THIS SCIENTIST WISHES TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS:

They won't actually have to sequence the Tiger genome, but they will have to extract from the embryo a cell with its nucleus intact. This shouldn't be too difficult, but there is the severe problem of DNA damage due to the specimen's age and preservation method.

Once they've extracted a suitable cell, they then have to inject it into the unfertilised egg cell (which has had its nucleus removed) from a closely related species.

This is the second problem as the Tiger isn't that closely related to any living species.

Once the tiger cell is injected into the egg cell of a devil(?), the two cells have to be fused together using electrical pulses. With the project that produced Dolly the sheep, only 29 out of 277 attempted fusions worked. This was using cell and egg-cell from two different breeds of sheep.............not two evolutionarily distinct species!

Then the fused cells are observed to see if they divide before implanting them into the surrogate mother.

Then you have to hope the pregnancy goes full term.

Work out for yourself if it's a long-shot!

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