Is the recovery of extinct wild species through somatic nuclear transfer possible?

Abstract

The advances in the world of the biomedical sciences are reaching unexplored and unexpected areas, such as the possibility of “recovering” extinct species. This has been highlighted by the recent publication of the “resurrection” of the first extinct subspecies: the Pyrenean ibex. Nevertheless, the incorporation of advanced reproductive techniques in the world of biological conservation has been limited until now and in occasions even misguided. The factors involved in this slow development are diverse but the most important one is the rejection by the “conservationist” community to high technology approaches. However, considering that Mexico is one of the megadiverse countries with a great number of species of threatened mammals, biotechnological tools are urgently needed for conservation research of Mexican species. Furthermore, these tools need to be utilized and developed by our own scientific Latin-American community. In this note, we discuss the scientific advances that have proposed the use of somatic nuclear transfer as a conservation tool, its real possibilities, the needs and suggestions for its development in threatened Mexican / Latin American mammal species that should allow modern biotechnology to turn into one more tool in the battle of biological conservation.