A suitable host animal will be needed, probably the thylacine's distant cousin, the Tasmanian devil. More needs to be known about that animal's breeding cycle and its DNA needs to be sequenced.
If the thylacine can be cloned, however, it has huge implications for conservation. Some critics fear people may cease to care about conservation at all.
Museum collections of bones and other once living artefacts will suddenly be more than mere historical curiosities. They will be time capsules which could be used to take species into the future.
Researchers say the project is massively underfunded. Only a single researcher has been working fulltime on the project, with limited laboratory facilities.
The roughly 120,000 Australian dollars (US$83,000) so far spent has been largely funded privately, partly by a trust with Tasmanian connections.
Archer and his colleagues are seeking more funding, promising in return one of the most exciting scientific projects of the present day.
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