What does all this mean to the average citizen? A species that could eat people? Ryan Phelan leverages advanced biotechnology solutions to empower conservation efforts. The goal is to use cutting-edge genomic technologies to solve previously intractable wildlife conservation challengers such as those posed by inbreeding, exotic diseases, climate change, and destructive invasive species. Tom grew up hearing first-hand accounts of the heath hen and as child fantasized he might one day find them in a hidden corner of the Vineyard. [ ED. [9], De-extinction has been criticized as too costly, consuming funds that could be used for other conservation goals, well as characterized as a distraction from currently endangered species. It's an amazing concept. He received a B.S. Something with a very different immune system and incomplete in fundamental waysperhaps not viable. I've been dealing with this whole genetic exceptionalism now for almost a decade with personalized medicine. Could we? And so we'll be talking to scientists that are working in captive breeding, like the San Diego Zoo, with the California ondor. She has since used these to trace evolutionary changes in organisms ranging from influenza to mammoths, asking questions about domestication, admixture between species pairs, and pathogen evolution. Ryan Phelan is the cofounder and executive director of Revive & Restore, a wildlife conservation organization that promotes the use of biotechnologies along with standard conservation practices. Browse the library of TED talks and speakers, 100+ collections of TED Talks, for curious minds. She has organized landmark workshops on genetic rescue bringing together global experts to identify the challenges facing endangered species to identify what genetic tools can be used or designed to help save them from extinction. An estimated 869 species have gone officially and, so far, irreversibly extinct just since the 16th century, and 290 more species are considered critically endangered and possibly extinct -- and in almost all cases the finger points to humans. He works collaboratively with partners and stakeholders to develop new programs, including Biobanking, to accelerate timelines for genetic rescue and ecosystem restoration. Jurassic Park fantasies of reclaiming extinct, even long-extinct species appear from time-to-time. Somebody has to responsibly help the industry and academia think through these heady issues, and I think we're going to start that dialogue this fall. Ryan is a serial entrepreneur, active in the for-profit and non-profit worlds.
This is genome engineering, and there may be way too much of a concern over what happens when they go into the wild. If something was meant to go extinct, then who are we to screw around with it and bring it back? Just like everything that we know that's really innovative in science, you never know the unintended benefits or what the outcomes are going to be. Copyright 2022 By Edge Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This position represents an exciting opportunity to bring innovative genomic solutions to both long-standing and novel conservation needs. His hobby is Ecological Restoration, but done on a scale that most would consider well beyond a hobby. She is the Executive Director of Revive & Restore, with a missionto enhance biodiversity through the genetic rescue of endangered and extinct species. She works directly with various research teams as they submit proposals, refine their scope of work, establish milestones, and oversee progress and deliverables. That's why I think an organization like Revive and Restore can actually help with the public discourse. Challenge partners are committed to the holistic restoration of at least. Should we? Any individual or organization (local, national, regional, or global) is invited to become a member provided you commit to a significant (for you) commitment to advance the vision and call to action of The Island-Ocean Connection Challenge. Gillians background includes fieldwork project management in Costa Rica, piloting a youth mentorship program with AmeriCorps, and caring for and rehabilitating wild animals removed from the black market pet trade in Bolivia. Ben uses his training in ecology and ancient-DNA lab work to contribute, hands-on, to the sequencing of the extinct Passenger Pigeon genome and to study important aspects of its natural history. Prior to her conservation work, for two decades she was a leader in patient-oriented health care and was the Founder and CEO of two innovative healthcare companies focused on empowering the healthcare consumer: DNA Direct and Direct Medical Knowledge. Copyright 2020 Island Conservation All Rights Reserved. Previously, Megan was a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), part of FSI, where she is now an affiliate. The progress of conservation science over three decades is impressive indeed, reducing the rates of extinction to a third of what they would have been otherwise. As a Certified Sommelier, and conservationist who values sustainability and accountability, Marmee specialized in biodynamic wines and farming practices. With a background in molecular biology and genetics, Bridget brings five years of experience in program creation, development, and management as a contractor to the Biological Technologies Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The Spanish scientists that did all that work feel that that cloning is completely viable. In 2005 Phelan launched DNA Direct, the first medical genetics company to focus on bringing personalized medicine to the consumer market. The goal of Revive & Restore's projects is to enhance biodiversity through new techniques of genetic rescue. Join us today in this campaign of hope and resilience! 15/ Winter 2022 - After the Green New Deal, No. Her book, How to Clone a Mammoth, offers a critical, pragmatic, perspective about de-extinction that is rooted in her ancient DNA expertise, Beth is a protagonist for the appropriate, ethical, and responsible application of de-extinction technologies for conservation of living species and their ecosystems. Ryan Phelan, Co-founder and Executive Director, Revive & Restore. [3] Afterwards the group's work has expanded to bring back genetic diversity through the cloning of historic, cryopreserved cell lines. Put resurrected goats back where they belong and they would be the most expensive cabrito these Spaniards have ever eaten. I think that the extinction that we've seen since man is 99.9 percent caused by man. Where do we put them? Real scientists those wearing white lab coats using fancy machines with nobs and digital readouts are saving the planet from the excesses of technology. We love seeing that bird fly and soar like it does. She was the founder and CEO of two innovative healthcare companies: DNA Direct, the first medical genetics company to focus on bringing personalized medicine to the consumer, and Direct Medical Knowledge, a consumer health web site unique for its content depth and innovative search interface. Gillian manages Revive & Restores incoming grants and outgoing awards to the research community. Specifically, around the study of extinct species we're going to probably learn what made them vulnerable to extinction. We'll be talking with the frozen zoos that are doing this kind of banking of genetic material, and trying to figure out what kind of ethical framework we could create, so that when these scientists actually start to succeed in these fields we can somehow socialize this in the public discourse. That begs a question. That's how resurgence will occur. In 2017, in partnership with Australias Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Ryan organized the Engineering Resilience workshop, which was modelled on Revive & Restores highly successfully New Genomic Solutions for Conservation workshop in 2015. Bens notable publications include his 2018 review article, De-extinction, in the journal Genes helped to define this new term, his treatment, Building Ethical De-Extinction ProgramsConsiderations of Animal Welfare in Genetic Rescue published in December 2019 in The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics: 1st Edition, and most recently a 125 year analysis of the impacts of biodiversity translocations U.S. It's always worth talking about consequences, but rationally.
In Materials Engineering, an M.S. NOTE: The following conversation took place at the seventh annual. They say that these flocks were so thick in the sky that when they passed it could take a mile for a flock of birds to go by. Well, we recently were at the California Academy of Sciences, up front and personal with Monarch, the last California grizzly, a beautiful specimen there, and we were joking, and not really joking, saying, "Well, what if you could genome edit the California grizzly so that it didn't like the taste of people?" Ryan is a serial entrepreneur active in both the for-profit and non-profit worlds. If we are the ones that are responsible for blasting it out of the sky, do we have a little bit of responsibility to think about bringing it back now that we have science that can easily allow for it? Bens work at CSIRO lead to the worlds first successful egg handling and husbandry protocols for hatching manipulated pigeon embryos and raising hatchlings to maturity a crucial milestone for expanding future genetic rescue and de-extinction research for altricial birds (birds whose survival is dependent upon parental care), which comprise ~90% of the worlds 11,000 bird species. Even among pigeons, there are some learned behaviors. The group was incubated by the Long Now Foundation and co-founded by Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan in 2012 [1] with the idea of advancing the science of de-extinction of the passenger pigeon, the heath hen,[2] and the woolly mammoth. Right now, George's approach of basically editing the genome starts to make the concept of bringing something back really plausible. [11] Revive & Restore is also mentioned in the 2021 documentary film, "We Are As Gods[de]". But, hopefully, in the fall we'll learn more about that. We'll be talking about the ethics of re-wilding. Someone will say no worries, mate, lets keep their DNA put them back in the wild later. To which the reply is where?.