GabyIt’s been more than 4,000 years since a woolly mammoth last walked the Earth. But these extinct giants might not be gone forever.
We may be one step closer to seeing a living woolly mammoth. The announcement came from Colossal Biosciences, a biotech company focused on bringing extinct species back. The startup plans to spend $15 million on the effort.
How they will resurrect mammoths
Researchers say they’ve made a significant breakthrough that could allow woolly mammoths to return around 2028. Scientists developed a method to create pluripotent stem cells from elephants — cells that can become any cell type in an organism. The Daily Mail reported the discovery as a major step toward reviving extinct species.
Dr. George Church, a Harvard Medical School geneticist and co-founder of Colossal Biosciences, said these cells are key to resurrecting the mammoth.
Dr. George Church
Eriona Hisol, head of the biological sciences department at Colossal Biosciences, said creating pluripotent stem cells wasn’t easy. She said it took years to develop the method for obtaining those cells.
To move from pluripotent cells to a living mammoth, scientists plan to edit the cells with genes recovered from woolly mammoth fossils. This biotechnology would let researchers create an egg cell that could be fertilized and carried in an artificial womb.
Ultimately, the team aims to create a hybrid that reproduces the main features of a mammoth. In particular, it would have a thick layer of fat, a dome-shaped skull, and long fur so the revived animals can withstand cold climates. Researchers hope that, in time, mammoths could help restore Arctic ecosystems damaged by the climate crisis.
Currently, researchers are testing cold-resistance genes in elephants and are working on cultivating egg cells and sperm for conservation and study.
Colossal Biosciences also plans to bring the Tasmanian tiger and the dodo bird back to life.
