With only two female northern white rhinoceros left on Earth, conventional breeding techniques to bring them back from the brink of extinction are no longer an option. Scientists, now turning to advanced reproductive technology to save the species, have completed a key step: mapping the creature’s entire genome, they report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
With that information in hand, scientists can now use it to evaluate the health of previously developed stem cells. Stem cells can be biologically coached into becoming many other cell types — an ability scientists refer to as pluripotency. The hope is to goad the preserved pluripotent stem cells into both sperm and egg, fertilize the egg in vitro, then implant it into a surrogate mother. If successful, this approach could be applied to other endangered species.
“What’s so exciting about this milestone is that we’re getting closer to being able to rescue animals that otherwise might go extinct during our lifetimes,” Jeanne Loring, an emeritus professor at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego and an author of the paper, said in a press release. “This is great progress not only for white rhinos, but for the entire field of animal conservation.”
