Researchers in Australia have set up a lab dedicated to bringing the thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger, back from extinction, the Washington Post writes.
It adds that the Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research (TIGRR) lab at the University of Melbourne is working on transforming cells from dunnarts to better resemble those from its close relation the thylacine using gene-editing approaches. "When people say, 'Didn't we learn anything from Jurassic Park?' — well, it's very different bringing back a velociraptor to a thylacine," Andrew Pask, the head of the group tells the Post. He adds there that he is coming at the issue from a conservation perspective and hopes that any lessons learned could help endangered animals.
Pask also notes, the Post says, that any resulting animal will be thylacine-like, as it will not have a full thylacine genome but one that is also still part dunnart.
Other de-extinction efforts center on bringing back the woolly mammoth, passenger pigeon, and, possibly, the dodo.