New Delhi, May 2 -- Rohini Krishnamurthy (RK): The "de-extinction" of dire wolves took 18 months. What enabled this quick timeline?

Beth Shapiro (BS): There is a lot of science that already exists, because the closest living relative of dire wolves is a gray wolf, which has been extensively studied. We could make progress more quickly on dire wolves than some of our other projects, like the mammoths, where we need to know a lot about elephant animal reproductive biology.

RK: What impact do you see from this project?

BS: We really believe part of the benefit from the dire wolf project is to bring attention to the plight of gray wolves and other species struggling for existence. Our dire wolf project has an immediate conservation impact...