They are far more likely to be found on our dinner plates than earning a place in the realm of scientific endeavour.
But the farmyard chicken has emerged as an unlikely lynchpin in the research to protect its endangered wild cousins – and even bring extinct species like the dodo back to life.
Scientists at New York University Langone have devised a technique that involves creating genetically-modified birds.
They do this by taking cells from the domestic chicken – specifically the ones that will eventually develop into sperm or egg cells – and growing them in a dish.
Then, large sections of DNA from another species, the wild red junglefowl, are inserted to replace the existing DNA of the chicken.
These ‘edited’ reproductive cells are then inserted into the embryos as they are developing in an egg.
Scientists have devised a technique to genetically modify farmyard chickens to eventually protect birds at risk of extinction (file photo)
Over time these chicks will hatch, grow up, mate naturally and produce genetically-modified offspring. The young will be ‘some sort of wild-looking chicken’, researchers say.
If successful, they hope the same method could be used to protect birds at risk of extinction – such as the Californian condor – by boosting their genetic resistance to certain diseases.
It could even be used to bring the extinct dodo back to life once enough genetic data has been collected from preserved samples.
Dr Anna Berenson told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Boston: ‘This will hopefully open up avenues for restoring at-risk bird populations by improving their genetic resistance to certain environmental challenges, and maybe even for reviving lost bird species.’
The method could even be used to bring the extinct dodo back to life once enough genetic data has been collected from preserved samples (file photo)
In her talk Dr Berenson said her team wants to ‘test the boundaries of avian genome engineering’ by trying to turn a domestic chicken back into a wild one.
She hopes to achieve this in about five years before setting her sights on the passenger pigeon – an extinct species that used to thrive in America before being wiped out by hunters.
‘I’d love to do the dodo,’ she added. The flightless bird was endemic to the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius before it was hunted to extinction in the 17th century.
Dr Berenson’s starting point is the white leghorn chicken, a prolific egg-layer which can produce around 300 eggs per year.
