Cloning concerns: Should we bring back extinct animals?

The Star

14-05-2025

IT'S the stuff of fiction.
When news broke that a biotechnology company in the United States had 'successfully' cloned dire wolves, which have been extinct since the last Ice Age 13,000 years ago, it, well, broke the Internet.
Time magazine captured the news eloquently with a cover picture of the dire wolf, which bears a close resemblance to an overly large white Swiss shepherd dog, with the word 'extinct' crossed out.
Made famous by the fantasy book and television series Game of Thrones , the three dire wolf cubs called Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi are the product of embryos created from DNA retrieved from fossils and edited with 20 genes of grey wolves, and then implanted in surrogate dog mothers. The wolves were born in January 2025.
Cloning animals is not new: Dolly the sheep was the first to be cloned, having being born in 1996 before dying six years later in 2003. However, cloning from fossils was, until October last year, only possible in the Jurassic Park movies.
According to Colossal, the biotechnology company behind this feat, it first sequenced the first complete genome of the dire wolf from two fossils: a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old inner ear bone.
Using cells from the blood of a grey wolf, the team subsequently incorporated 20 edits across 14 genes to produce the traits of a dire wolf. They then removed the nucleus from the edited cell and inserted it into the denucleated egg cell of a domestic dog, with the resulting embryo later implanted into the surrogate animal, a dog.
Although some biologists have since poured cold water on the actual science behind the dire wolf's revival, there's now talk about the possibility of bringing back – or 'de-extincting' – animals like the Tasmanian tiger or the thylacine, and the flightless dodo or even those from the Ice Age like the woolly mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers.
This undated photo shows Romulus and Remus, both three months old and genetically engineered with similarities to the extinct dire wolf. — Colossal Biosciences via AP More importantly, if such 'de-extinction' technology proves to be viable in the long-run, what does it mean for Malaysia that has already lost a few of our own species?
Can or should they be revived? And at what costs?
Besides the ethical concerns that come with rejuvenating a species dead for thousands of years, some scientists have accused Colossal of producing 'dire wolves' that are merely 'edited' grey wolves.
Adding to the debate is that while the dire wolf ( Aenocyon dirus ) may look similar to the grey wolf ( Canis lupus ), the lineage of the two species actually split around 5.7 million years ago. Bringing it to life
Tam back in 2016 before his death. His harvested sperm has been preserved. — Borneo Rhino Alliance In 2019, with the death of Iman, the last Sumatran rhino, Sabah declared the species to be extinct in the wild in Malaysia, leaving only a handful of the animals still existing in Indonesia.
However, before Iman died, a team from the Leibniz Institute of Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany successfully retrieved an egg from her to eventually be used for the purposes of in vitro fertilisation (IVF).
The egg was then taken to the Centre for Wildlife and Livestock Innovation at the Faculty of Sustainable Agriculture in University Malaysia Sabah in Sandakan.
Iman, Malaysia's last female rhinoceros, pictured at Tabin Wildlife Reserve in Lahad Datu, Sabah, before her death. Her eggs were harvested and are currently preserved in a 'frozen zoo'. — Filepic/The Star Sperm had also been harvested from male rhino Tam, which had died a few months earlier.
The plan then had been to have Iman's egg inseminated with Tam's sperm via IVF, and placed inside the uterus of another female rhino in Indonesia as surrogate.
Although the plan eventually failed to come to fruition, will such genetic material – presumably stored safely away – be enough to bring back the Sumatran rhino in Malaysia?
In the case of the dire wolf, International Islamic University's (IIUM) Prof Muhammad Lokman Md Isa points out that genetic engineering had been used to bring back an extinct species with fossilised material 'we have been lucky to find'.
'We then fuse the DNA from this fossilised material together with the DNA of another animal quite similar to the species or character of that extinct animal.
'So that's why if we are producing the clone of an extinct animal, maybe it's not 100% because we are just editing or inserting certain templates of the DNA of that ancient species into the template of the DNA of the species that we have now,' he explains.
Since the DNA sequence of the extinct animal had to be modified with genetic engineering, Prof Muhammad Lokman clarifies that the product itself is no longer pure or natural anymore.
'So of course it will have a lot of problems. Maybe it will not be able to sustain itself. However, we cannot deny that kind of initiative, it's a good one.'
Prof Muhammad Lokman believes the 'de-extinction' of species will, sooner or later, be a part of Malaysia's conservation strategy. — Photo provided However, when it comes to using the technology in the dire wolf case on the Sumatran rhinos – the last three of which were Iman, Tam and Puntung – Prof Muhammad Lokman is more positive.
This is because a 'cell line', a population of cells derived from samples and which scientists can then grow in the laboratory, exists from the rhinos.
These cells carry the full genetic blueprint of the original animal.
Prof Muhammad Lokman – who is from the university's Institute of Planetary Survival for Sustainable Wellbeing based at IIUM's Kuantan campus – is part of a team working on using cells from the dead rhinos to produce sperm and eggs.
The institute is also the location of the Malaysia's first 'frozen zoo', capable of storing biological samples carrying the genetic material of endangered animal species.
In 2016, the frozen zoo reportedly collaborated with what was known then as the Borneo Rhino Alliance (Bora) to conserve Sumatran rhinos by obtaining the cells and tissues of the animals and storing them at the institute.
'We have the living cell from the rhinos, that is, the full, complete genome of their DNA. So that when we clone them to place in an enucleated egg – an egg which has had its nucleus removed – we can produce a fully grown clone of the animal as a total,' Prof Muhammad Lokman says.
So, compared with the dire wolves, which had to have parts of their genome edited to bring them back to life, the chances of producing a cloned Sumatran rhino from a living cell with the full genomic information using the same technology will result in animals with better conditions, the professor points out. The frozen zoo
On the institute's efforts and how far along it is in producing a cloned Sumatran rhino, he says it is now awaiting financial backing such as grants or donations due to the high cost of such experimentation.
'What we are trying to do is the in vitro maturation of the egg of an animal. We need to have a lot of eggs to produce the embryos.
'So we are now optimising producing or maturing the eggs in vitro. When we have optimised this method, we can try to produce the embryo outside the body, and then maybe transfer the embryo into a surrogate animal,' he says.
In vitro maturation is a technique where immature egg cells (oocytes) are collected from the ovary and then matured in a lab dish, outside the body.
The nucleus from a cell line is removed and inserted into an enucleated egg cell (oocyte). The egg is then stimulated to develop into an embryo – a clone of the original animal.
'We are now doing this with normal animals like rabbits, monkeys, and then, when we have established and optimised the procedure, we can use this on samples from our frozen zoo.
'The cell line is ready to be used and now, we are optimising the conditions of the donor ovum,' he says.
Should the de-extinction of species be a part of the conservation strategy in Malaysia?
'Yes, definitely,' Prof Muhammad Lokman replies.
'It's going to be, sooner or later, the main part of the strategy.
'It's better that we have a frozen zoo so that we can keep all the materials and we can bring back [extinct species] whenever possible for the future generations.'
Nevertheless, Prof Muhammad Lokman cautions that whatever extinct species is brought back, one has to bear in mind the need to understand the physical nature and functions of the animal within the ecosystem.
'If the animal could harm us and disturb our ecology, maybe we should not bring it back.
'In the case of the Sumatran rhinos, their main function in the ecosystem is to distribute the population of plants. Because their roaming territory is large, they distribute plant seeds via their stool, and so we have more variety of plants and crops in the forest with the rhinos,' he says.
Working with both the Pahang government and the Wildlife and National Parks Department, IIUM's frozen zoo is in the midst of expanding the list of samples of wildlife in its collection, says Prof Muhammad Lokman.
It has samples from the Malayan tiger, the Sunda pangolin, the Malayan gaur, the Malayan tapir, tembadau (Bornean banteng), the civet, and the sun bear, the professor details. Circumstances might not be right
Payne believes that the technology used in the dire wolf case cannot be applied to the Sumatran rhinos yet. — Photo provided However, Bora chief executive officer Datuk Dr John Payne is of the opinion that the technology used in the dire wolf case cannot be applied to the Sumatran rhinos.
Bora, now known as Bringing Back Our Rare Animals, was instrumental in a years-long campaign to save the Sumatran rhinos. It was involved, along with Universiti Malaysia Sabah and the Sabah Wildlife Department, in attempts to recover the Sumatran rhino through the application of assisted reproductive technology.
Payne agrees with the other biologists that the dire wolves are just 'genetically modified grey wolves'.
'Even if one likes the general aim and methods, this cannot be applied to the Sumatran rhinoceros.
'Why? Because the genetic difference between the Sumatran rhino and all other living rhino species is very great – as much as the difference between, say, gorillas and orang utans,' he explains.
The smallest of all the living rhino species, the Sumatran rhino ( Dicerorhinus sumatrensis ) is the only Asian rhino with two horns. Covered with long hair, they are also more closely related to the extinct woolly rhinos than any living rhino species.
'I think that, in theory, the methodology used with the grey wolf and dire wolf could be used. But the practice would be very ­different," says Payne.
'The problem, apart from any ethical issues that some people might have, is technical. The genetic differences between, say, the thylacine or the dodo, and its closest living relatives, are very great.
'At present and foreseeable levels of our technical ability, the differences are simply too great to imagine how the genome of one could be modified so significantly as to become the genome of the extinct species,' he says.
Asked what Malaysian wildlife should be on a possible to 'de-extinct' list, Payne says the only one that springs to mind is the Sumatran rhino.
Indonesia, he adds, has all the remaining animals now, and the ability to recover the numbers by well-managed captive breeding.
On the programme to recover the Sumatran rhinos through reproductive technology, Payne explains that it was a programme headed by the Sabah Wildlife Department and financed by the Malaysian government.
'But success was predicated on full collaboration with Indonesia.
'Sadly, Indonesia did not want to collaborate, even to the extent of rejecting offers to send our rhinos and their egg cells to Indonesia,' he says.
Perhaps with better cloning technology, whether it be the dire wolf case or other techniques, Malaysia won't have to depend on other countries to help save our wildlife.