A Personal Story:

Assisted reproductive technologies have been used successfully in previous attempts and I believe that although the focus has been on mammalian reproduction, other species can thrive from these procedures as well (Nagashima, J. B., et. al., 2015). I had the opportunity to work at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute over the summer, where I was honored to work under post-doctoral fellow, Jennifer Nagashima. My work focused on using ARTs and improving their protocols to help successfully repopulate the Red wolf species. While the methods of my research were incredibly complex, my supervisor Dr. Nagashima, had become the first individual to successfully use these procedures to produce live puppies! Through the process of IVF, previously explained in the “What is it” tab, Nagashima and her team were able to successfully fertilize an embryo under a microscope and create little lab puppies. She was even able to keep on of the offspring!

Although using a dog was a starting model, successes such as Nagashima’s give hope to scientists all over the world that species recovery is possible to scientific intervention!