Welcome to Breakthroughs with Pfizer-UK, the podcast where Pfizer invites experts from across

the pharmaceutical industry to discuss the most pressing healthcare topics.

Approximately 5% of the red disease is estimated to be about 7,000 that exist.

Only 5% of them have treatments.

Because of the really small patient numbers, you can't have your giant trials that give

you statistical power.

Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Fiona Samuels.

The red wolf once roamed a huge swath of the Eastern United States.

The historic range of these rust-colored canines stretched from Long Island across

Missouri and down to the Texas-Mexico border.

But by 1972, the population was reduced to only roaming a small area along the Gulf coast due

to habitat loss and hunting. The conserved the species, 14 individuals were captured as part

of a breeding program. In 1980, their wild relatives were declared extinct.

The captured wolves were all that was left.

The species has gone through this huge bottleneck and through that lost a lot of genetic

variation, and now there's a fair amount of inbreeding in the species.

Because you can't help it when you have so few founders.

That's Kristen Breske, an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University,

whose research focuses on the conservation of genetics of wild animal populations.

I think what captures the imagination with the red wolf, and I think this work,

is it? It's been the underdog. It's been the underdog scientifically.

...