Russian 'Jurassic Park' Lab To Clone Mammoth From Frozen DNA

A Russian lab aims to bring the extinct woolly mammoth back to life - in a project with chilling echoes of the film Jurassic Park.

Siberian researchers are opening a new lab to study the DNA of the animal, which died out in the last ice age.

Researchers hope to implant DNA from woolly mammoths frozen in permafrost into an elephant embryo.

The result would be the return of a creature which died out 5,000 years ago.

The lab in Yakutsk is to investigate the feasibility of cloning extinct mammals - and has a large collection of frozen carcasses and mammoth remains from prehistoric animals including horses, foxes and mammoths.

Speaking to Russian newspaper Kommersant, Semyon Grigorev of the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, said the researchers hoped to find viable cells which could be used to create a clone.

Researchers have already reproduced copies of 14 of the extinct animal's genes, and integrated them into the live DNA of an elephant.

The study, which concluded in May, is seen as an important 'first step' towards cloning the giant animals.