If all goes according to their plans, between 2025 and 2027 they will have the first baby mammoth ready. The first of hundreds, with a clear objective: to repopulate the tundra with mammoths to curb climate change.
The woolly mammoth or elephant became extinct in Europe about 10,000 years ago. Although on some uncolonized islands, they have been found remains from only 4,000 years ago.
One hundred centuries after its extinction, the mammoth could walk on the icy surface of the tundra again. That is the goal of Colossal, a startup founded by Dr. George Church, one of the pioneering geneticists in the revolutionary gene manipulation technique, CRISPR.
Thanks to the funds of the other co-founder, the billionaire Ben Lamm, CEO of the company, Colossal already has 15 million dollars to begin with the titanic task of resurrect the mammoth.
It is an old dream of Humanity that became universal with the books and movies of Jurassic park: the possibility of resurrect extinct species by inserting their DNA into similar animals that still exist. It is what is known by the name of of extinction.
Although theoretically possible, until a couple of years ago it was more science fiction than science. But CRISPR discovery changes everything.
CRISPR is a technique that allows cut and paste DNA relatively easily. The implications are huge, because we are talking about curing genetic diseases or improving crops, but also adding supergenes to humans, which are inherited. In essence, alter the species.
Colossal proposes using CRISPR to add mammoth DNA fragments to Asian elephant cells, the closest to the mammoth.
With this they would be obtained hybrids with smaller ears and hair, but after the following generations, selecting genes and modifying them with new fragments obtained from the thousands of mammoth remains found, in the end it would end up obtaining a pure woolly elephant.
The point of Colossal is not to create a mammoth zoo and charge admission to earn money. Your intention is repopulate their natural habitat with hundreds, thousands of these animals, and help curb climate change.
As explained in his web page, climate change is melting Siberia’s permafrost, releasing huge volumes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Herds of mammoths would knock down the dark trees that absorb sunlight to feed or advance, and the compost they generate would transform the tundra into meadows that reflect light and keep the ground cooler, blocking methane and creating a lot of plant matter to also block carbon.
To speed up the process, Colossal plans use artificial bellies that would allow raising hundreds, thousands of mammoths at the same time, without having to resort to female elephants.
The company itself recognizes that it is a daunting task, not only because of the challenge of resuscitating an extinct species, but also because of the many legal and ethical walls you will have to overcome.
Your first goal, and you already have money for it, is to start testing and at the same time develop new genetic tools that they would have other applications that they could sell to finance themselves.
Something similar to what happened with the trip to the Moon, which was not only important for the trip itself, but also because it developed technologies that have been applied to everyday life, from the portable vacuum cleaner to smoke detectors, or various types of plastics.
Those utopian mammoths may never come true, but the journey to get there can be interesting …