Now Malaysian scientists hope to use tissues and cells from Iman and other dead rhinos to bring back the population.
The project, carried out by a team at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), focuses on stem cell technology and in vitro fertilization. The process is similar to cloning technology, in that it aims to give birth to a new baby with cells from old rhinos, said Dr. Muhammad Lokman Bin Md. Isa, one of the leading researchers.
“Before the three rhinos (the last survivors in Malaysia) died, we got their cells, and the cells are still alive – that’s why I’m pretty confident,” Drs. Lokman to CNN. “If you have no cells, or if we just had tissue that no longer lives, we can do nothing about it. We can only place it in a book or museum. But now we have a living thing that we can to use. “
Here’s how the process works: In collaboration with the Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA), the researchers collected cells and tissue from the last three Sumatran rhinos at BORA’s shrine – including Iman – before each died.
The cells came from the hearts, lungs, brains and kidneys of the rhinos. Crucially, the team collects stem cells – in principle, raw material from which cells with specialized functions can be generated.
There are then two possible approaches. The first is to develop these stem cells into an egg and sperm, creating an embryo that will be implanted in a surrogate mother. The surrogate will probably be a different rhino, whether a Sumatran rhino from a different country or a different species.
The second method is to take the egg of a surrogate animal, remove the nucleus and take it with a somatic cell of a Sumatran rhino. This technique was famously used to clone the sheep Dolly in 1996.
Lokman and his colleagues try both ways.
Because the stem cells replicate themselves, the team has a decent supply and can try different methods to see which one works best.
The team is still in the preliminary stages; afterwards they have to analyze the cells to make a genomic database, distinguish the stem cells, and work with zoos and conservatives to find a suitable surrogate female. There are a number of ways this can go wrong; fertilization could fail, and even if it does not, the pregnancy could fail once the embryo is implanted.
The race against extinction
Iman died last year at BORA’s Borneo Rhino Sanctuary, where she has been held and cared for since her imprisonment in 2014. She was 25, and had cancer, which began to cause her pain because a tumor put pressure on her bladder.
There are a number of factors that complicate these efforts; the female rhino on the reserve proved to be infertile, and plans to set up an international breeding collaboration ultimately failed due to “a series of incidents, some sociopolitical, some biological, and some just bad luck,” said Susie Ellis, executive director of the International Rhino Foundation, in a statement following Tam’s death.
With Iman’s death, the IRF declared the species extinct in the wild in Malaysia; the remaining rhinos are scattered throughout Indonesia and Thailand.
The decline of the population was initially caused by poaching for its horns, which were used as ingredients in traditional Asian medicine. Later, it was enhanced by fragmented habitats and human encroachment on the environment, which prevented the rhinos from collecting and feeding.
There are now only five remaining rhino species worldwide, and all are endangered. Some sub-species have already disappeared; the western black rhino, native to western Africa, was declared extinct in 2013 due to poaching. The last male northern white rhino died last year, which is what scientists urged to try in-vitro fertilization with Fatu and Najin.
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