Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday September 14 2021, @10:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the big-deal dept.

Firm raises $15m to bring back woolly mammoth from extinction

Ten thousand years after woolly mammoths vanished from the face of the Earth, scientists are embarking on an ambitious project to bring the beasts back to the Arctic tundra. The prospect of recreating mammoths and returning them to the wild has been discussed – seriously at times – for more than a decade, but on Monday researchers announced fresh funding they believe could make their dream a reality.

The boost comes in the form of $15m (£11m) raised by the bioscience and genetics company Colossal, co-founded by Ben Lamm, a tech and software entrepreneur, and George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School who has pioneered new approaches to gene editing.

The scientists have set their initial sights on creating an elephant-mammoth hybrid by making embryos in the laboratory that carry mammoth DNA. The starting point for the project involves taking skin cells from Asian elephants, which are threatened with extinction, and reprogramming them into more versatile stem cells that carry mammoth DNA. The particular genes that are responsible for mammoth hair, insulating fat layers and other cold climate adaptions are identified by comparing mammoth genomes extracted from animals recovered from the permafrost with those from the related Asian elephants. These embryos would then be carried to term in a surrogate mother or potentially in an artificial womb. If all goes to plan – and the hurdles are far from trivial – the researchers hope to have their first set of calves in six years.

[...] The project is framed as an effort to help conserve Asian elephants by equipping them with traits that allow them to thrive in vast stretches of the Arctic known as the mammoth steppe. But the scientists also believe introducing herds of elephant-mammoth hybrids to the Arctic tundra may help restore the degraded habitat and combat some of the impacts of the climate crisis. For example, by knocking down trees, the beasts might help to restore the former Arctic grasslands.

Pleistocene Park.

Also at NYT and CNBC.

Previously: Woolly Mammoth Genome Sequenced
Resurrection of the Woolly Mammoth Could Begin in Two Years
Analysis Supports Conservation of Existing Species Rather Than De-Extinction of Mammoths
Mammoth DNA Activates Briefly in Mouse Eggs


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday September 14 2021, @03:46PM (2 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 14 2021, @03:46PM (#1177735) Journal

    Well, with mammoths, if they become an invasive species they're pretty easy to get rid of. They're large enough that there won't be many of them, they can't hide, and they're easy to shoot from airplanes. Unlike rabbits.

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 14 2021, @06:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 14 2021, @06:04PM (#1177779)

    Yes and additionally, they'll be living far enough away from currently existing elephants that the likelihood of them spreading their genes to other species will be negligible. Assuming they're even let outside of a park, which is somewhat doubtful.

  • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday September 15 2021, @10:21PM

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 15 2021, @10:21PM (#1178133) Homepage Journal

    with mammoths, if they become an invasive species they're pretty easy to get rid of

    We've already done it once, and we have better technology now.