How can science recreate the mammoth species that became extinct 4,000 years ago – 18/09/2021

Colossal, an American company launched on Monday, is trying to tackle the 4,000-year-old woolly mammoth with the help of genetic manipulation techniques that will set foot in Arctic soil again.

“Colossal is the first company to launch a practical and effective extinction model and use advanced genetic modification techniques to re-integrate wool mummies into the Arctic tundra,” the company said.

The notion that extinction is created by an animal genetics similar to an extinct organism is not unanimous in the scientific community. Some researchers doubt its reliability or worry about the risks of its use.

Developed by businessman Ben Lam and geneticist George Church, the Colossus attempts to insert DNA sequences from woolly mummies (preserved in Siberian soil) into the genus of Asian elephants in order to create a hybrid species. The company says on its website that the DNA of the Asian elephant is 99.6% identical to that of the woolly mammoth.

Creating these hybrid pacifiers and reintroducing them into the tundra should make it possible to “recover lost ecosystems.

The modified Woolly Mammoth “can give new life to Arctic grasslands”, which, according to the company, will capture carbon dioxide and remove methane and two greenhouse gases.

Biotech was able to raise $ 15 million in private funds to achieve its goal, which was welcomed with skepticism by some experts. “There are a lot of problems with this process,” biologist Beth Shapiro told the New York Times. “It’s not extinction. There will never be mammoths on earth again. If it works, it’s a cimetric elephant, a completely new, artificial and genetically modified creature,” tweeted Tory Herridge, a biologist and archaeologist at the Natural History Museum. London.