University of Melbourne researchers have shown that a DNA fragment taken from Tasmanian tiger samples (the thylacine, extinct for 70 years) can be added to mouse embryos, where the DNA functioned normally in making collagen.

This is the first time that genetic material from an extinct animal has functioned inside a living host. Other researchers have resurrected extinct DNA inside cell lines in the lab.

This work isn’t a step towards cloning the entire Tasmanian tiger, according to the researchers, because all known thylacine DNA samples are too badly degraded. The technique could be used to study gene function of other extinct species where we have DNA samples.