The woolly mammoth went extinct some 10,000 years ago, but it may now get a new chance for life after one company decided to step in.
Colossal, co-founded by Ben Lamm and Harvard Medical School genetics professor George Church, raised $15 million to ensure this happens.
Their goal is to have calves in around six years.
How Is the Revival of the Woolly Mammoth Planned to Happen?
This project is a continuation of Dr. Church’s work to resurrect the woolly mammoth and the first time he discussed this publicly was in 2013.
Since he can read and edit DNA, he feels that if he could modify the genes of the closest living relative of the woolly mammoth, he could revive the species.
This relative is the Asian elephant, although their link with the woolly mammoth is quite distant. Their closest common ancestor lived some six million years ago; however, Dr. Church believes that he could make something with the elephant’s genes to produce a hybrid of the woolly mammoth.
The embryos will then be transferred to a surrogate or an artificial womb. Although the work is extensive, Dr. Church and his team are confident that they could birth the calves in around six years.
Despite many controversies surrounding the ethics of creating hybrid animals and releasing them into the wild, Dr. Church claims this project will help the environment. Namely, the original habitat of this species located in Siberia and some parts of North America releases CO2 at a fast pace.
The tundra, which was once grassland, is now covered in moss and there are some experts who argue that mammoths are the key.
They help keep the environment healthy by knocking down trees, dissolving the moss, and fertilizing the land with their droppings. Although Russian ecologists have brought the bison and some other species to the area for some similar effects, Dr. Church believes that mammoths will do better.
Not everyone agrees with Dr. Church. For example, Dr. Victoria Herride, an evolutionary biologist at the Natural History Museum, believes that the idea of geoengineering the Arctic environment with a herd of mammoths isn’t plausible.
Moreover, Heather Browning, a philosopher at the London School of Economics, notes that there are ethical problems concerning the revival of the animal without a family to guide it.
That is, there’s no mom for a species that (if they’re anything like elephants) has a strong mother-baby bond that lasts for a long period of time. Browning argues that when there’s a little mammoth, who will make sure they’re looked after?
The Work Can Be Useful for the Species in Danger of Extinction
Those who argue that the work can be useful say that it can help with the species that are in danger of going extinct.
That is, the genetic tech from the project can be used to modify the at-risk species and help them withstand the heat better or inject them with genetics and make them resistant to certain illnesses.
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