Mammoth it is not. But Colossal Biosciences “woolly mouse” is an important step in the biotech startup’s plan to resurrect traits of the wooly mammoth, which last trod the earth some 4,000 years ago.
“The Colossal Woolly Mouse marks a watershed moment in our de-extinction mission,” said the company’s Ben Lamm.
“By engineering multiple cold-tolerant traits from mammoth evolutionary pathways into a living model species, we’ve proven our ability to recreate complex genetic combinations that took nature millions of years to create.
Of mice and mammoths
Colossal plans to edit DNA cells of an Asian elephant, the mammoth’s closest living relative, with traits assembled from preserved DNA to produce a mammoth-like elephant that can withstand the cold.
The logic is that the stomping and grazing of the animals could help restore arctic tundra to nutrient-rich grasslands that support biodiversity, and compress carbon-laden permafrost to prevent melting. (How the creatures will learn to graze and survive is a separate question).
Colossal says its research and technology can also help preserve species that have not yet gone extinct.
The woolly mice, alas, will not be released into the wild.
