Scientists take a step closer to resurrecting the woolly mammoth
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A biotech company says it has taken a big step towards resurrecting an extinct species - the woolly mammoth. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein has the details.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: The woolly mammoth was a big, shaggy species of elephant that roamed the tundra before going extinct thousands of years ago. A company called Colossal Biosciences in Dallas has been working to bring the mammoth back to life using the latest cloning and gene-editing techniques. And now, the company says scientists have achieved a major milestone - the creation of a long-sought kind of stem cell, known as an induced pluripotent stem cell, from the mammoth's closest living relative.
GEORGE CHURCH: This is probably the most significant step in the early stages of this project.
STEIN: George Church is a geneticist from Harvard and MIT who helped start Colossal. It's no giant, hairy beast roaming the wild yet, but Church says it's a big deal.
CHURCH: This is kind of like asking Neil Armstrong whether he plans to go to Mars - kind of misses the point that he just landed on the moon in Apollo 11.
STEIN: Because scientists can now use the cells to try to create elephants with key traits from mammoths, such as their heavy coats and layers of fat that let them survive in cold climates.
CHURCH: We don't necessarily need to bring back a perfect genome of a mammoth because we want one that has certain things that mammoths didn't have - like, we want them to be resistant to the herpesvirus that is causing a huge fraction of infant elephants to die.
STEIN: Some scientists say the achievement could provide valuable insights into elephant biology. That knowledge could bolster conservation efforts for the endangered animals. Oliver Ryder directs conservation genetics at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.
OLIVER RYDER: Producing induced pluripotent stem cells has become routine for some species - like humans, like mice - but it's proved to be very difficult for some species and, notoriously, the elephant. The elephant occupies a special place on the tree of life of mammals, so it's a great advancement to be able to have accomplished this for elephant.
STEIN: But Ryder wouldn't necessarily put using the cells to bring back mammoths at the top of his to-do list, and he's far from alone. Karl Flessa is a professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona.
KARL FLESSA: And what are you going to get out of this, you know? You're going to - first of all, I think you're going to get a bit of a freak show in a zoo somewhere. And then, if you're going to release a herd into the Arctic tundra, you know, is that herd simply going to go marching off to its second extinction in the face of global warming? I think it's irresponsible.
STEIN: But church defends the project.
CHURCH: Some people think it's a bad idea because there will be only one lonely, cold-adapted elephant. That's not - our intention is to have them fully socialized, in large herds. Some people think it's a bad idea because it takes money away from conservation efforts when, in fact, we're injecting money into conservation efforts.
STEIN: Expanding the elephant habitat, Church argues, could also help fight global warming by restoring ecosystems in ways that could help protect the climate. Colossal is also trying to bring back the dodo bird and the Tasmanian tiger.
Rob Stein, NPR News.
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