United States Company is on a mission to recreate woolly mammoths

(Washington) That the woolly mammoths, a species extinct 4000 years ago, once again tread the Arctic soil is the challenge that the American company Colossal is trying to meet with the help of genetic manipulation techniques, launched on Monday.

“Colossal will launch a practical and effective de-extinction model and will be the first company to apply advanced genetic modification techniques to reintegrate the woolly mammoth into the Arctic tundra,” the company said in a statement.

De-extinction, the concept of creating an animal similar to an extinct species using genetics, is not unanimous in the scientific community, with some researchers doubting its feasibility or worrying about the risks of its application.

Created by entrepreneur Ben Lamm and geneticist George Church, Colossal aims to insert woolly mammoth DNA sequences, collected from remains preserved in Siberian soil, into the genome of Asian elephants, in order to create a hybrid species.

Asian elephants and woolly mammoths have 99.6% similar DNA, Colossal points out on its website.

The creation of these hybrid pachyderms and then their reintroduction into the tundra should make it possible “to restore disappeared ecosystems which can help to stop or even reverse the effects of climate change”, assures the company.

Genetically modified woolly mammoths could notably “revive arctic grasslands”, which can capture carbon dioxide and remove methane, two greenhouse gases, according to Colossal.

The biotechnology company has managed to raise $15 million in private funds to accomplish this goal, which is met with skepticism by some experts.

“There are a lot of problems that are going to arise during this process,” explains biologist Beth Shapiro in The New York Times.

“This is not a de-extinction. There will never be mammoths on earth again. If it works, it will be a chimeric elephant, a totally new, synthetic and genetically modified organism,” tweeted Tori Herridge, biologist and paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London.