Prof. Pierre Zalloua

We will.

I mean, we're trying so hard.

And actually, from that visit that you and I had, colleagues there, they're trying to actually get some good quality DNA out of the samples that they have.

But still to date, we have not been able to get that.

So ancient DNA, so every single cell of our body or the skeleton supposedly has DNA.

But with time, cells get very porous.

And then if there's no collagen to keep the bones together, you lose a lot of the skeleton of the cell itself and DNA is no longer there.

So you need some form of skeleton to fix the DNA to it.

So we basically use certain parts of the skeleton, namely the teeth and the molar, precisely because if you can actually drill within the molar part, you can actually extract DNA and you hope that there is DNA inside.

So that's one part that we can get DNA from.

But most recently, and I say recently, over the last five years or so, we discovered that the petrous bone, which is, yes, which is below the ear,

right at the end of the mandible, it's very thick.

It's actually one of the thickest, if not the thickest bone in the body.

Because it's thick, it actually can withstand a lot of heat and a lot of climatic changes, et cetera.

And we can actually extract DNA from it.

And that's what most scientists have been successful with is extracting DNA from petrous bones.

And actually, this was a major shift in the way we extract DNA.

So basically, you grind that bone.

And then when you grind that bone, you basically, you dissolve all the material into an aqueous phase and then liquid phase.

And then you get the DNA out and you analyze the DNA.