[MedicineForUs]

Scientists reconstruct genetic makeup of 50,000-year-old girl
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...?newsfeed=true

Ian Sample, science correspondent

Scientists sequenced single strands of DNA found at the Denisova cave in the Altai mountains in 2008. Photograph: Johannes Krause/AP

Scientists have reconstructed the entire genetic makeup of a girl who lived and died in a Siberian cave more than 50,000 years ago. The young woman belonged to an ancient and long extinct group of humans called Denisovans, their existence known only from meagre fossil remains uncovered at the Denisova cave in the Altai mountains in 2008. These ancient relatives are thought to have occupied much of Asia tens of thousands of years ago. Previous tests on the remains found they were more closely related to Neanderthals than modern humans.

Writing in the journal Science, researchers in the US and Germany describe how they sequenced the girl's genome with an accuracy that was once considered impossible with such ancient specimens. The final sequence matched the quality of modern genetic tests on living people.

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impressive

Could they bring her back to life, if so how?

[bridsanaeds]

Could they bring her back to life, if so how?

No.

Perhaps in the far future, it may be possible to clone her, creating another individual with a similar genetic makeup, but I'd suggest the errors they talk about, although low, would be enough to make it non-viable.

[Aceroassert]

No.

Perhaps in the far future, it may be possible to clone her, creating another individual with a similar genetic makeup, but I'd suggest the errors they talk about, although low, would be enough to make it non-viable.

Is it possible to clone a human being now?

[joanbertis]

Is it possible to clone a human being now?

Well we did it with "Dolly" Not Parton, Dolly the sheep.

[BrifsGefel]

Is it possible to clone a human being now?

Twins?

And even cloning Dolly the sheep wasn't done by reconstructing from the DNA info. They actually had living cells to work with, and split into a new individual.

[85IbLcwQ]

> Scientists sequenced single strands of DNA found at the Denisova cave in the Altai mountains in 2008.

Yes. We know that. That's how they know that Denisovans have some DNA in common with polynesians. Keep in mind that Denisovans were around BEFORE Neanderthals. We know practically nothing about what they look like because we only know about them from a few small bones.

> sequenced the girl's genome with an accuracy that was once considered impossible with such ancient specimens. The final sequence matched the quality of modern genetic tests on living people.

That is impressive.

> Could they bring her back to life, if so how?

It's scientifically and technically feasible, even easy. Far easier than bringing back the Tasmanian tiger or Woolly mammoth. Politically impossible, the ethics committees would never approve it. The method would start with taking apart the genome from a human cell, making appropriate changes throughout (not a complete change, but all changes that radically affect proteins) and stitching the DNA back together before inserting it into an embryonic stem cell. The result would be implanted in a human uterus just like IVF.

[23tommy]

> Is it possible to clone a human being now?

Yes. Donkeys have been cloned from adult cells. There was no (or, not much, perhaps 3 genes) DNA reconstruction involved.