When a tiny droplet of blood in the belly of a prehistoric mosquito trapped and preserved in amber gave enough DNA to bring back the dinosaurs to life, in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 superhit, Jurassic Park, it was the triumph of a fiction-writer’s imagination. It was fascinating to think of such a scenario.
But now, an American company has set out to welcome back the woolly mammoth, dodo, Tasmanian tiger.... and all the goodfellas lost to history.
Every hour, 6 species go extinct, most, if not all, due to human activities. Colossal Biosciences believes it is the moral responsibility of humankind to correct this historical wrong. “We accept the responsibility,” declares the company’s website.
Colossal Biosciences, which calls itself ‘de-extinction company’, intends to use the CRISPR technology to “jumpstart nature’s ancestral heartbeat”. CRISPR, a gene-editing technology, can cut a gene and insert another one in its place. Colossal Biosciences, founded by a Harvard geneticist, intends to “insert cold-resistant characteristics into the elephant DNA”. This, it says, would lead to “de-extinction of the Woolly Mammoth”.
Will it succeed? Investors seem to think so since they have put over $150 million into the company. But the scientific community is somewhat skeptical. To bring back an extinct species, Colossal would need to get hold of the entire DNA of the species, which is not easy.