The Sweet Smell of Extinction?

According to a “Nature Briefing” by the publisher Springer Nature, Wake Up and Smell the Extinct Leucadendrons, Daisy Ginsberg worked with scent researcher Sissel Tolaas and a biotech company called Ginkgo Bioworks to answer the question, “Would it be possible to use synthetic biology to reproduce the smell of an extinct flower?” The three flowers chosen went extinct recently because of human activities. The oldest, Leucandendron grandiflorum, was last seen alive in a London garden in 1805. Dried specimens were found in collections housed at Harvard University and tiny samples were snipped from a herbarium. Paleogeneticists at the University of California Santa Cruz extracted DNA. From that, Ginsberg’s team used synthetic biology to recreate fragrance enzymes.