The start-up Colossal Biosciences says it has taken a big step forward on the path to reviving the woolly mammoth. According to the company, it has been possible to create pluripotent elephant cells that can mature into a wide variety of cell types and that can now significantly accelerate research.
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Why the company is happy about elephant cells is due to its strategy for the mammoth revival: It wants to combine the genetic material of Asian elephants with woolly mammoth genes and thus create particularly resilient pachyderms with fur that protects against the cold. As an argument for the plan, which certainly makes one think of Jurassic Park, the start-up cites that the hairy pachyderms could help in the fight against climate change. They compact the ice on permafrost soils and thus prevent the release of climate-damaging methane.
“Without surgical interventions on valuable animals”
The recipe for the pluripotent elephant cells has been working on for a long time, reports managing director Eroica Hysolli. “Previous attempts have been numerous but unsuccessful. Elephants are a very special species and we are only beginning to understand their biological basis,” she says. With genetic engineering tricks and a new manufacturing protocol, the breakthrough to all-round cells has now been achieved. It is a milestone, says Harvard genetic researcher and company founder George Church, according to a statement. “It opens the door to obtaining germ cells and other cell types without surgical intervention on valuable animals.” By artificially generating pluripotent elephant stem cells, the research team does not have to rely on tissue samples from living elephants. Access to the 30,000 to 50,000 free-living Asian elephants is limited.
Connections between genes and traits could be established in both modern and extinct relatives – including resistance to extreme environmental influences and pathogens. However, the new findings that the start-up published on the preprint server bioRxiv are only a small step towards the revival of the woolly mammoth. Whether a first calf will actually see the light of day in 2027, as announced when the company was founded in 2021, is just as uncertain as the questions of whether it can survive in the wild – and what influence such animals actually have on the global climate.
(Older brother)
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