Researchers from the University of Melbourne say they've developed a method to make quolls immune to cane toad toxin.One researcher is confident the genetic modifications can be rolled out within five years.
University of Melbourne professor Andrew Pask said cane toads were "one of the biggest threats to northern quoll populations". "We've looked at ways that we can genetically engineer a quoll to be cane toad-toxin-resistant," he said. He said it was thanks to genetic editing that wild quolls could exhibit that immunity within just a few years."The fantastic thing about this is it means not only do we save the quoll, but they can then eat cane toads and help control the spread of this terrible pest species across our landscape."The technology to edit genomes in this fashion comes from work being done by Colossal Biosciences to reverse the extinction of animals once thought to be lost to history.
"This is a very simple edit, and then turning those cells back into a living animal is a lot less challenging."