Bioscience firm wants to bring back Ice Age woolly mammoth | the Chronicle

Once again reality has beaten fiction. A group of scientists from Harvard facing an ambitious project so that the woolly mammoth walk on the Earth 10,000 years after his disappearance. This Monday they announced that they had new funds, $ 15 million, to launch surveys that would give a first litter of puppies in 2027.

The Colossal bioscience and genetics company claimed to have raised enough money to make its founders’ dream come true: that mammoths would repopulate the arctic tundra 10,000 years after the last living specimen roamed the region.

Its founders, Ben Lamm, a software and technology entrepreneur, and St. George’s Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, explained how they plan to conduct their experiment to “revive” these gigantic animals.

Scientists have given the project the green light after raising $ 15 million to create a elephant and mammoth hybrid make embryos in the lab that carry mammoth DNA. The first step is to taking skin cells from Asian elephants, which are in danger of extinction, and reprogram them to become more versatile stem cells that carry mammoth DNA, they assured the Guardian.

The particular genes that are responsible for mammoth hair, insulating fat layers, and other cold adaptations are identified comparison of mammoth genomes extracted from animals recovered from permafrost with those of related Asian elephants. The embryos would then be brought to term in a surrogate mother or potentially in an artificial uterus. Researchers hope to have the first gigantic birth in six years.

“Our goal is make a cold resistant elephantbut it will look and behave like a mammoth. Not because we are trying to fool anyone, but because we want something that is functionally equivalent to the mammoth, which takes advantage of its -40 ° C weather and does whatever elephants and mammoths do, in especially cutting down trees. “said the church.

The goal of the project is to help conserve Asian elephants by equipping them with traits that allow them to thrive in the Arctic, in areas known as the Gigantic Steppe. But scientists also believe that the introduction of herds of elephant-mammoth hybrids to the arctic tundra could restore degraded habitats and fight against the impact of the climate crisis. For example, by cutting down trees, beasts could help restore ancient arctic grasslands.

However, not everyone agrees with what has been raised by the scientists in charge of the project. “My personal opinion is that the justifications given, the idea that a arctic environmental geoengineering using a mammoth ear, it is not plausible “say it Dr. Victoria Herridge, evolutionary biologist of Natural History Museum. “The scale at which you should experience this is enormous. You are talking about hundreds of thousands of mammoths, each of which takes 22 months to gestate and 30 years to mature. “added.

Lamm argued that his plan “It’s not just about bringing the mammoth back, but bring back crossed herds which have been successfully rewound in the arctic region “.

Gareth Phoenix, professor of plant ecology and global change in University of Sheffield, has explained : “While we need a multitude of different approaches to stop climate change, we also need to initiate solutions responsibly to avoid unintended negative consequences. This is a big challenge in the vast Arctic, where different ecosystems exist under different environmental conditions. “

The expert believes that if mammoths are offered as a solution to help stop the thawing of permafrost, as they will remove trees, trample and compact the soil and turn landscapes into grasslands, which can help keep the soil cool; “In forested arctic regions, trees and moss cover can be essential to protect permafrost, my handCutting down the trees and stomping on the moss would be the last thing I wanted to do“.