Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences on Wednesday announced early technical successes in its efforts to genetically engineer elephants with woolly mammoth characteristics. The company announced that scientists have successfully returned elephant skin cells to their fetal state.
“I think we are certainly in the running for the most difficult iPS cell establishment in the world record,” said George Church, co-founder of Colossal and a geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. ” he said. Nature. Church is co-author of a preprint research paper about this study, which will be published soon. BioRxiv.
As the name suggests, the woolly mammoth is a type of elephant that lived from about 2.6 million years ago until it became extinct several thousand years ago. Colossal calls itself an “extinction eradication” company, working to bring back many extinct species using genetics and cloning technology.
About 18 years ago, researchers first showed that mouse skin cells could be reprogrammed to function like fetal cells. These cells are called “induced pluripotent stem cells” and can transform into various types of animal cells. These pluripotent cells may hold the key to producing Asian elephants with woolly mammoth traits such as shaggy fur, extra fat, and even giant tusks.
But while it's still a long way from the company's goal of creating a herd of woolly mammoths that can roam in the wild again, it's still a big step. “It's like asking Neil Armstrong if he's going to go to Mars, and he's missing the point when he just landed on the moon with Apollo 11,” Church said. NPR.
The company now needs to manipulate cells using gene editing and other techniques to create mammoth-like elephants. Church said the goal is not to bring the woolly mammoth back completely, but rather to give the new animal some characteristics that weren't present when mammoths roamed the Earth. “Just as we want them to be resistant to the herpes virus that is causing the deaths of huge numbers of baby elephants,” he added.
Colossal Biosciences is not without its detractors. Many scientists have spoken out about the potential ethical conflicts the company could face. Their plan to establish a herd of woolly mammoths, for example, could result in these animals marching toward their own death due to climate change.
Others argue that the company's technology could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. Ben Lamb, co-founder of Colossal, said: entrepreneur In 2021, when asked about negative impacts and bad actors accessing technology, he said, “As long as we're transparent, people can hold us accountable.”
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Originally uploaded to: July 3, 2024 13:18 IST
