An Australian science project to resurrect an extinct frog species has been named one of the world’s best inventions.
The Lazarus Project centres on a genome technology developed by researchers from the University of Newcastle. It was included in Time magazine’s 25 Best Inventions of the Year 2013 list because it has been successfully used to bring back to life the gastric-brooding frog.
Famous for giving birth through its mouth, the native frog has been extinct since 1983. The researchers were able to collect DNA from frozen frog tissue stored in a conventional freezer for 40 years. Using a process known as somatic cell nuclear transplantation, they deactivated eggs from the distantly related great-barred frog and swapped the nuclei with that of the gastric-brooding frog.