A Texas biotech company is trying to bring mammoths and other extinct creatures back to life. The science is as intriguing as the ethical questions are thorny.
A Texas biotech company is trying to bring mammoths and other extinct creatures back to life. The science is as intriguing as the ethical questions are thorny.When the elevator doors part on the second floor of a two-story brick and glass building in an office park on the outskirts of downtown Dallas, it feels like a portal opening to a different world.
The cavernous lobby is quiet and dimly lit. High ceilings expose pipes and ducts painted black. Glossy white stone floors seem to glow. A video wall silently shows extinct and endangered species and scientists working in white lab coats. A big white animatronic dire wolf perches on a faux stone cliff. Every few seconds, the wolf almost imperceptibly shifts its head, as if scanning the horizon for predators or prey.Colossal has the audacious goal of resurrecting extinct species like the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger and dodo bird. In the process, Colossal has been generating both excitement and disdain. Enthusiasts say the company could be creating invaluable tools not only to resurrect ancient species, but also to save creatures on the brink of extinction. Critics say the company's goals are far-fetched and its claims exaggerated. They question whether it would be ethical or safe to bring back extinct species, even if it were possible. Today, Colossal is opening the company's new 55,000-square foot lab to NPR. It's a rare look inside how 260 geneticists, reproductive biologists, ecologists and other scientists are pushing the limits of technologies such as gene-editing, cloning and artificial intelligence to turn the fantasy of Jurassic Park into a different kind of reality.We pass what looks like a wooly mammoth encased in ice and make our way through stylish black-walled hallways into the lab where ancient DNA is extracted.This bit of mammoth tusk is about 2 feet long and looks more like a log than part of a big curved tooth from a hairy beast that roamed the tundra before going extinct thousands of years ago. "You can see this is incredibly well-preserved," says Shapiro as she snaps on a pair of blue rubber gloves."But this clean part underneath — this looks like it's fresh, right? It does have DNA preserved in it." Shapiro picks up a small electric saw to demonstrate on the jawbone of a bull how scientists extract woolly mammoth DNA from samples like this recovered from the Siberian permafrost. "It smells like DNA. Can you smell it?" Shapiro asks."Smells like the dentist a little bit, right? That's actually the burning of organic material. So it means that there's some organic material left in it." Colossal scientists are analyzing dozens of mammoth DNA samples and comparing them to genetic material from living elephants to pinpoint critical genes. "This is a way of narrowing down that list of what variants are important to making a mammoth rather than another type of elephant," Shapiro says. Colossal's scientists are using those genetic guideposts to try to create cloned, gene-edited mammoth embryos from the skin cells of Asian elephants, which are the extinct mammoth's closest living relative. The embryos would be transferred into surrogate female Asian elephants in the hopes they'll give birth to mammoths 22 months later. The company says it's getting close and predicts the birth of the first mammoth in about two years.In one glass box, four small mouse pups scurry about. In another, a bigger, fluffier adult sits quietly in the white litter. Named Chip, this mouse, and his brother, Dale, were the first two woolly mice produced by Colossal.Unlike typical mice with short gray-brown coats, these woolly mice have long dirty-blond hair that mimics the shaggy fur that helped protect mammoths from the Arctic cold. "This was a great step for us to validate that the genes that we were targeting in the woolly mammoth genome are responsible for this specific woolly coat trait," James says."That is sort of us being able to check a box and say: 'OK. We know we're editing in the right place in the woolly mammoth.'"Dire wolves resemble gray wolves but were larger, heavier and had broader skulls and more powerful teeth than their surviving relatives. Colossal named the animals Romulus, Remus and, of course, Khaleesi, a character from the series. They're on a secret preserve somewhere.Critics, however, dismiss Colossal's dire wolves as a publicity stunt — saying they are really just gray wolves genetically modified to look like what the writers ofSimilarly, they argue, Colossal's mammoths wouldn't really be mammoths but simply Asian elephants modified to have some mammoth traits, such as shaggy coats and fat to warm them in their frozen world. "Just because it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it isn't actually going to be a duck,", a paleogeneticist at the University of Otago in New Zealand, told NPR."I think it's honestly a pipedream. Extinction is still forever."And even if Colossal could re-create a mammoth, critics question whether that would even be ethical. They argue it would be unethical to resurrect extinct species that could very well just suffer and go extinct all over again— this time because their old habitat has changed too much or, perhaps, they don't have real mammoth mothers to teach the intelligent, social creatures how to survive.Another concern is that, just like in Jurassic Park, something unanticipated could go terribly wrong. "It could be catastrophic," Loring says."There's too many variables that we don't understand. There are too many things that could happen." Critics also argue the money Colossal is spending would be better used to save existing species on the brink of extinction. Skeptics even fear Colossal's efforts could undermine conservation efforts. "The argument would be something like: 'Now we don't have to worry about conservation anymore because we can just bring animals back from the dead,'" saysIn fact, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum cited the possibility of"de-extinction" when questioning the Endangered Species Act."It's time to fundamentally change how we think about species conservation," Burgum"They're mounting a disinformation campaign designed to garner positive and free public relations in support of raising capital that they can use for the biotech development," Lynch says. Colossal is privately held, but says it has already raised more than $600 million and was valued at $10 billionThe company hopes the technologies it's developing to restore lost species could be profitable in other ways. Colossal has already spun off two companies,Colossal dismisses the criticisms of its efforts to revive extinct species. Lamm and his colleagues say reintroducing missing species into the wild would be safe for the animals and the world. In fact, they say the animals could repair damage to their ecosystems. Mammoths, for example, could help fight global warming by preserving and restoring the permafrost, they argue. "It will be a mammoth because it will look like a mammoth and it will act like a mammoth, and it will restore interactions to that ecosystem that mammoths had with other species," Shapiro says. Plus, Shapiro and her colleagues say, the genetic sequencing, gene-editing, cloning, reproductive and other technologies the company is developing will also be crucial for saving living species. "Here are some tools that are just at our fingertips that we can use to do something good," Shapiro says.in the United Arab Emirates to preserve millions of frozen cell and tissue samples from more than 10,000 species, including endangered creatures. The UAE "I think we have an opportunity to undo some of the sins of the past. A lot of these species we're working on mankind had a direct — like not an indirect — but a direct application to their demise," says Lamm, Colossal's co-founder and CEO."It's unethical not to do this. It's immoral not to do this. Because I personally believe that only technology and synthetic biology has any hope of saving us."
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Houston News Roundup: Reactions to Khamenei's Death, Local Events, and Texas PoliticsA summary of recent news in Houston and Texas, including reactions to the death of Ali Khamenei, local events like Heights Foodies Week and a lunar eclipse, an update on a fatal shooting, and political responses to a shooting in Austin.
Read more »
AP college basketball poll: Duke on top; Texas Tech joins top 10Texas Tech had the biggest jump of the week, climbing six places with wins over Cincinnati and at Iowa State.
Read more »
Missing Texas Girl Held for 2 Weeks by 5 Men Who Drugged and Raped HerThe 16-year-old girl told police in Lubbock, Texas, her captor released her outside of a pet store the day after he learned she was reported missing
Read more »
Texas college student identified among victims in Austin bar shooting probed as possible terror attackFox News Channel offers its audiences in-depth news reporting, along with opinion and analysis encompassing the principles of free people, free markets and diversity of thought, as an alternative to the left-of-center offerings of the news marketplace.
Read more »
Federal and city officials say the man who opened fire outside a Texas bar was not on their radar -AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Federal and city authorities say the gunman who opened fire outside a Texas bar, killing two people and wounding 14 more was not on their
Read more »
Texas primaries: ‘ShamWow Guy’ Vince Offer loses GOP bid for Texas’ 31st congressional districtThe race for the Republican nomination in Texas' 31st Congressional District came down to two familiar faces to voters Tuesday night.
Read more »