Scientists from NEFU and Sooam Foundation continue joint research on the cloning of an ancient foal

In the North-Eastern Federal University, an international team of scientists continues to search for active cells that can give rise to the life of ancient foal, which lived on Earth 42,000 years ago. The study of an ancient animal showed that he was only one to two weeks old, according to the unique Mammoth Museum of the NEFU Research Institute of the Applied Ecology of the North.

Every year in the territory of the largest republic of Russia – Yakutia, local residents and scientists find the remains of ancient animals. One of the latest sensational discoveries was the carcass of a foal, which lay in the permafrost for 42 thousand years. Today, Korean and Yakut scientists are exploring the possibility of cloning an animal, telling at the NEFU «Molecular Paleontology» International Center for Collective Use. Specialists and researchers, who worked with all the unique paleontological finds over the past 15 years, noted that the preservation of the Verkhoyansk foal is the best of all studied.

In September, samples of wool, soft tissues and biological fluids of an ancient foal were also taken by specialists from the Clinic of the Medical Institute and the Physical and technical institute of the NEFU. Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Normal and Pathological Anatomy, Operative Surgery with Topographic Anatomy and Forensic Medicine of the NEFU Medical Institute Darima Garmaeva notes that the preparation of the seized material is currently being sampled.

«I would also like to note that, visually, the preservation of this ancient object is unique. Almost all internal organs are anatomically preserved, but the results of morphological studies will show the degree of preservation of the architectonics of tissues and cells in permafrost conditions. It should be understood that the study and assessment of the preservation of the cellular and tissue structures of ancient animals from permafrost are necessary for the development of cryopreservation technologies for entire organs», said NEFU professor Darima Garmaeva.

The International Center for Collective Use «Molecular Paleontology» was opened in March 2015 on the basis of the laboratory «P.A. Lazarev Mammoth Museum» Institute of Applied Ecology of the North as a separate structural unit of the Institute. The opening of the «Molecular paleontology» was made possible by the Agreement on Scientific Cooperation under the project «Revival of the Mammoth and Other Fossil Animals», concluded between the NEFU and the biotechnological research foundation Sooam of September 23, 2012.

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