The Hunt for Ancient DNA – Natural & Artificial

David R. Wood

Abstract: The recently released documentary titled “The Hunt for the Oldest DNA” was the inspiration for the writing of this paper. It is because Professor Eske Willerslev and I, David R. Wood, are both peers in two mirror fields of evolutionary science achieving similar breakthrough results using similar techniques to unconceal ancient DNA – natural and artificial. This paper goes through the documentary section by section to describe how Willerslev’s and my journey of exploration to make breakthrough scientific discoveries follow literally the same pattern. The reason is that hunting for ancient natural DNA and artificial DNA which are variations of each other requires the same adaptations to align with the value stream demanded to make our respective scientific discoveries. And the paper concludes with a call for the integration of these two distinct research efforts in two peer fields of evolutionary science. To integrate the cross-interdisciplinary information, perspectives, and techniques to enhance both research efforts. This will predictably enable accelerated scientific discoveries in both evolutionary fields in the future.