Jurassic Park (non-fiction)

“Creativity is more important than knowledge”- Albert Einstein

The process of transcending traditional patterns with newer, more useful interpretations, or creativity, is exactly what the late Michael Crichton used when concocting Jurassic park. Although it was just fantasy at the time, its reality is now in scope. With a few adjustments to the original novel, scientists will likely be able to eliminate the extinction of dinosaurs.

Initially, DNA was extracted from fossilized insects dwelling in amber, but it could not be produced, as it was contaminated. A recent well-preserved fossil find in Montana however, demonstrates that a once pregnant bird bestowed its bones with cell samples for us to cultivate. We cannot currently recover enough DNA from these cells to produce a dinosaur but we may be able to later.

What we can do now is utilize recombinant DNA technology to couple what DNA we can extract from these tissue samples and couple it with that from dinosaurs’ modern day ancestor: the bird. By genetically engineering the genes that have adapted to a bird-like structure, we can alter them into sort of a devolution into one that produce the characteristic long tail and long searing teeth.

By tracing the Genes in the progression of dinosaur into bird, we can fill in the gaps of the genome with Aves DNA that Crichton filled in with frog DNA. Also we could use the fact that many accessible, modern-day, “vestigial” bird DNA contains ancestral genes that the birds themselves don’t use, as it lies dormant in their genome. This would clue us in on some gaps to fill. Next we would have to assemble the DNA into chromosomes, which we should be able to do in the next couple of decades.

How does this relate to biomedical engineering? The field of recombinant DNA technology and genetic engineering is spearheading biological phenomena by the day. By experimenting with birds and prehistoric creatures we avoid ethical dilemmas that can arise from experimenting with our own race. The project will gain considerable insight on our potential that will later be able to be applied to us, when we are sure of success. I opt to share it because this is my number two anticipation for the future, as eliminating cancer is my third, and discovering interstellar or intergalactic neighbors (aliens) is my first. The latter couldn’t really be linked to biomedicine and the former is already being taken care of with the exhaustion of hundreds of billions of dollars devoted to it each year.

Kevin Wood

http://www.progressiveu.org/220346-jurassic-park-made-reality