he'll turn the dunnart into a much larger tassie tiger. s dna. we compare that to the dna of your extinct species, the tasmanian tiger, and we look at everywhere that those two ginos or those two piles of dna, if you like, are different. once you've identified those differences, it's just a matter of then going in and making all of those edits to turn your dunnart genome or cell into a thylacine cell. >> you're saying that dunnart, that little field mouse marsupial dunnart, is closer than, say, the tasmanian devil? >> but that little dunnart is a ferocious carnivore even though it's very, very small, and it's a very good surrogate for us to be able to do all this editing in. >> reporter: a native of minnesota, chris helgen is director of the australian museum research institute in sydney. he understands the push to de-extinct the tassie tiger. >> this is one of my favorite mammals. >> really? >> and i love all mammals. i am a mammal guy. this is a special, special animal. >> reporter: he took us upstairs to his lab to show us why. >> so thi