“If you just 'shove' DNA into a human cell, nothing will work. DNA, properly packed into a chromosome, would have to be implanted into a cell, but we cannot yet pack it,”said Nikolai Yankovsky, director of the RAS Institute of General Genetics.
At this stage, the development of science is impossible, and it is unclear whether it will be possible in the future, says Nikolai Yankovsky, director of the RAS Institute of General Genetics, by implanting Neanderthal DNA into a human egg.
So he commented on the words of Harvard scientist George Church (George Church), who in an interview with Spiegel magazine announced his intention to "clone" the Neanderthal in this way. For this experiment, Church says he will need a surrogate mother who will agree to carry the first "new Neanderthal."
“If you just 'shove' DNA into a human cell, nothing will work. A cell would need to be implanted with DNA correctly packed into a chromosome, but we cannot yet pack it. And it is not yet clear if this will be possible, at any time. Science now cannot give a definite answer to this question,”Yankovsky told RIA Novosti.
Photo: haw.uni-heidelberg.de
He explained that direct "injection" of a DNA molecule can only work in the case of bacteria - organisms in whose cells there are no nuclei. However, such an experiment also requires a suitable cell. Craig Venter, who reconstructed the bacterium on the basis of artificially synthesized DNA, placed the molecule in such a living cell, which correctly “triggered” the DNA.
“Nobody knows how different what is in a Neanderthal cell is from what is in a human cell - apart from DNA. And in the cell there are various products, without which the development will proceed, it is not known how - the point is in their balance,”the scientist said.
At the disposal of scientists there are no living cells of Neanderthals - they all collapsed thousands of years ago.
Promotional video:
“It's like a video player and a laser disc to it. Perhaps we can make a laser disk - DNA - although we cannot properly package DNA, and science cannot make a "video player" - a cell - at the same time. To make a Neanderthal, you need not only a disc, but also a video player,”Yankovsky said.
In addition, he noted, there are serious problems with DNA itself - until now, scientists have been able to synthesize only bacterial DNA, which is thousands of times shorter than human.
“The media portray the work of geneticists as working with a constructor - inserted DNA into a cell - and everything worked, mammoths, Neanderthals, anyone else appeared. This is a big oversimplification, as long as there are many obstacles, and some of them may be insurmountable,”he said.
