Researcher wants to release thousands of mammoths in the Arctic

Colossal Biosciences is a startup company founded by tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm and renowned geneticist George Church, aiming to revive the woolly woolly mammoth, or more precisely, create gene-edited Asian elephants. can tolerate cold and has all the key biological features of its extinct relative. In mid-August 2022, the company also announced plans to bring back the Tasmanian tiger.

While not an exact replica, the hybrid would look like a woolly mammoth and could inhabit the same ecosystem where extinct elephants once roamed. The science side of this ambitious and controversial project is led by Church, Newsweek reported on August 21. His pioneering research has contributed to the development of DNA sequencing and genetic editing technologies.

Church directs synthetic biology studies at the Wyss Institute for Bioengineering at Harvard University. He is also a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, and has held various positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other institutions. Church has also co-authored hundreds of scientific articles and dozens of patents and founded more than 20 companies. He had long dreamed of bringing back the woolly mammoth. After collaborating with Lamm, that dream can become a reality, although it will initially need to overcome many major scientific and logistical obstacles.

The shape of an ancient woolly mammoth.

Gene editing steps

Colossal's goal was to create a hybrid elephant with woolly mammoth characteristics such as thick fur and layers of fat and other cold adaptations. They will use advanced gene editing technology. According to Church, the method is very similar to research one of his companies conducted with pigs. In that study, the scientists made about 40 modifications to the pigs' genomes to make their organs suitable for transplants in humans.

Colossal is planning to do the same amount of editing in cells taken from the Asian elephant, the endangered species' closest living relative of the woolly mammoth, sharing about 99.6% of its genome. . In fact, Asian elephants and woolly mammoths are more closely related than African elephants, Church said.

To determine which edits to make, Colossal's team needed to compare the genomes of Asian elephants with those of woolly mammoths to determine where the key differences lay. Some mammoth carcasses are exceptionally well preserved with tissue samples containing intact DNA. From there, the researcher can construct at least part of the genome. They could then start editing the genes in cells taken from Asian elephants with the goal of creating animals more like mammoths. The number of edits will be approximately the same as the previous pig genome study.

"We're going to use CRISPR or various other editing tools to tweak the cell by adding DNA. Next, we'll take the nucleus out of the cell and put it in an egg. We'll implant it in a pregnant mother. surrogacy and wait. In the case of elephants 22 months. The result is a young. The point is not to revive a species but to revive individual genes in a cluster, which helps with cold tolerance." , Church said.

Artificial uterus or surrogacy

Another method that the Colossal team is working on in parallel is to grow Asian elephant-mammoth hybrid embryos in an artificial womb instead of using a surrogate mother. The mother is more likely to be an African elephant than an Asian elephant because the species is larger and will have less difficulty giving birth to a hybrid.

This has never been done before with any mammals, but researchers have had success with several animals. For example, a team of specialists at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia once nurtured sheep embryos for four weeks. Lambs usually weigh more than 90 kg at birth.

Although using a surrogate mother is more feasible because the technology has been tested to a certain extent with other mammals. According to Church, most members of the research team support the method of using an artificial uterus despite technical challenges, because it can be scaled up and does not affect the reproduction of live elephants. Colossal's goal is to create an Asian elephant-mammoth hybrid that can live for six years.

Environmental benefits

If Colossal hits its target, the company hopes to introduce enough elephants into the wild to restore a healthy state of the Arctic environment and slow the melting rate of the permafrost there, preventing it. process releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases, threatening efforts to respond to climate change.

Mammoths are key species that play an important role in maintaining the health and biodiversity of the ecosystems in which they live. The disappearance of mammoths over the past few thousand years has contributed to a reduction in carbon sequestration in the Arctic. Currently, dominating this ecosystem are mossy forests and swamps.

Soil restoration could help prevent thawing and release of greenhouse gases from polar permafrost, according to Colossal. The side effect that Church and colleagues are interested in is maintaining the Arctic soil by letting elephants trample on snow and bringing cold air into the soil during the winter.

In addition, grass land also reflects sunlight better than trees currently in the Arctic due to brighter colors. So the more weed land, the more it helps to cool the ecosystem. According to Church, Colossal is focusing on the region in the Arctic with the highest carbon because more methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, would be released if the permafrost in those places melted.

If Colossal can create an Asian elephant-mammoth hybrid, their plan is to send tens of thousands of them to the North Pole at a density of one per square kilometer. They think the amount is enough to have an effect such as blocking methane release. Colossal will build multiple centers with an incubator in the center. Herds of elephants will radiate from there. However, the time frame to reach this number would be extremely long if reproduction required female elephants to act as surrogate mothers.