Wanted: 'Adventurous woman' to give birth to Neanderthal man
Wanted: 'Adventurous woman' to give birth to Neanderthal man - Harvard professor seeks mother for cloned cave baby
- Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School believes he can reconstruct Neanderthal DNA
- His ambitious plan requires a human volunteer willing to allow the DNA to be put into stem cells, then a human embryo
By Allan Hall and Fiona Macrae
PUBLISHED: 10:36 EST, 20 January 2013 | UPDATED: 04:16 EST, 21 January 2013
Neanderthals have been extinct for 33,000 years, but George Church, a genetics professor at Harvard Medical School, believes he can bring them back with the help of a surrogate human mother.
They're usually thought of as a brutish, primitive species.
So what woman would want to give birth to a Neanderthal baby?
Yet this incredible scenario is the plan of one of the world’s leading geneticists, who is seeking a volunteer to help bring man’s long-extinct close relative back to life.
Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School believes he can reconstruct Neanderthal DNA and resurrect the species which became extinct 33,000 years ago.
His scheme is reminiscent of Jurassic Park but, while in the film dinosaurs were created in a laboratory, Professor Church’s ambitious plan requires a human volunteer.
He said his analysis of Neanderthal genetic code using samples from bones is complete enough to reconstruct their DNA.
He said: ‘Now I need an adventurous female human.
‘It depends on a hell of a lot of things, but I think it can be done.’
Professor Church’s plan would begin by artificially creating Neanderthal DNA based on genetic code found in fossil remains. He would put this DNA into stem cells.
These would be injected into cells from a human embryo in the early stages of life.
It is thought that the stem cells would steer the development of the hybrid embryo on Neanderthal lines, rather than human ones.
After growing in the lab for a few days, the ‘neo-Neanderthal’ embryo would be implanted in the womb of a surrogate mother – the volunteer. Professor Church, 58, is a pioneer in synthetic biology who helped initiate the Human Genome Project that mapped our DNA.
Big ideas: Contrary to belief, Neanderthals had a larger brain size and may have been more intelligent than humans
Bringing the past alive: A scene from the film Jurassic Park, which suggested dinosaurs could be recreated through DNA trapped in amber
He says Neanderthals were not the lumbering brutes of the stereotype, but highly intelligent. Their brains were roughly the same size as man’s, and they made primitive tools.
Cloning the caveman: Geneticist Professor George Church
He believes his project could benefit mankind.
He told German magazine Der Spiegel: ‘Neanderthals might think differently than we do. They could even be more intelligent than us.
‘When the time comes to deal with an epidemic or getting off the planet, it’s conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial.’
Scientists say that his plan is theoretically possible, although in Britain, like most countries, human reproductive cloning is a criminal offence.
But Professor Church’s proposal is so cutting-edge that it may not be covered by existing laws.
However, experts worry that neo-Neanderthals might lack the immunity to modern diseases to survive, and some fear that the process might lead to deformity.
There is also uncertainty over how they would fit into today’s world. Bioethicist Bernard Rollin of Colorado State University said: ‘I don’t think it’s fair to put people... into a circumstance where they are going to be mocked and possibly feared.’
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