Texas-based biotech firm Colossal Biosciences has taken a significant step towards the science fiction dream of resurrecting an extinct species.
The company announced Wednesday that scientists have created induced pluripotent stem cells for Asian elephants, the closest living relatives of the long-extinct woolly mammoth. Though peer review is still pending, the company plans to share the details in a scientific paper posted on the bioRxiv preprint server. Geneticist George Church, co-founder of the firm and a professor at Harvard University, hailed the milestone as a significant early stage in the project.
The ambition is to employ cloning and gene editing techniques to manipulate these newly created elephant cells in hopes of generating elephants bearing key traits of mammoths, including fur coats and fatty layers for cold survival. Church stated that the aim wasn’t to create a perfect mammoth genome but rather an improved version that could resist diseases like the devastating herpesvirus currently threatening elephant calves.
The project, however, has sparked fierce debates among scientists about the ethics of rejuvenating extinct species. Critics, such as Karl Flessa, a geoscience professor at the University of Arizona, express concerns about the potential for “freak shows” in zoos and the risk of subjecting reborn species to a second extinction due to modern environmental threats.
Church defended the venture, stating the intent is to bolster conservation efforts and use resistant traits to protect endangered animals like Asian elephants. Although the potential for this innovation remains controversial, many researchers see enormous potential in studying these specialized stem cells for the conservation of genetic diversity and species sustainability.
