Extinction is still forever, but scientists at the biotech company Colossal Biosciences are pursuing what they call the next best thing to restoring ancient beasts—genetically engineering living animals with traits resembling extinct species like the woolly mammoth.
Woolly mammoths roamed the frozen tundras of Europe, Asia, and North America until they went extinct around 4,000 years ago.
Colossal made headlines in 2021 when it unveiled an ambitious plan to revive the woolly mammoth and, later, the dodo bird. Since then, the company has focused on identifying key traits of extinct animals by studying ancient DNA, with the goal of genetically engineering these traits into living animals, said CEO Ben Lamm.
Outside scientists have mixed views on whether this strategy will benefit conservation.
“You’re not actually resurrecting anything—you’re not bringing back the ancient past,” said Christopher Preston, a wildlife and environment expert at the University of Montana, who was not involved in the research.
On Tuesday, Colossal announced that its scientists had simultaneously edited seven genes in mouse embryos to create mice with long, thick, woolly hair. They nicknamed the extra-furry rodents the “Colossal woolly mouse.”
Results were posted online, but they have not yet been published in a journal or reviewed by independent scientists.
The feat “is technologically pretty cool,” said Vincent Lynch, a biologist at the University of Buffalo, who was not involved in the research.
Scientists have been genetically engineering mice since the 1970s, but new technologies like CRISPR “make it a lot more efficient and easier,” Lynch added.
Colossal scientists reviewed DNA databases of mouse genes to identify those linked to hair texture and fat metabolism. Each of these genetic variations “is already present in some living mice,” said Colossal's chief scientist, Beth Shapiro, “but we put them all together in a single mouse.”
They selected these traits because the mutations are likely related to cold tolerance—a quality woolly mammoths must have had to survive on the prehistoric Arctic steppe.
Colossal said it focused on mice first to confirm the process works before potentially moving on to edit the embryos of Asian elephants, the closest living relatives of woolly mammoths.
However, because Asian elephants are an endangered species, there will be “a lot of processes and red tape” before any plan can move forward, said Lamm, whose company has raised over $400 million in funding.
Independent experts remain skeptical about the idea of “de-extinction.”
“You might be able to alter the hair pattern of an Asian elephant or adapt it to the cold, but it’s not bringing back a woolly mammoth. It’s changing an Asian elephant,” said Preston.
Still, the refinement of precision gene-editing in animals could have other applications for conservation or animal agriculture, said Bhanu Telugu, an animal biotechnology researcher at the University of Missouri who was not involved in the study.
Telugu said he was impressed by Colossal’s technological advances, which enabled scientists to pinpoint specific genes to target.
The same approach might one day help fight diseases in humans, Lamm suggested. So far, the company has spun off two healthcare startups.
“It’s part of how we monetize our business,” he said.
Source: AP/UNB
Bd-pratidin English/ Jisan
