Colossal a pioneering biotech company based in Dallas, Texas has made some bold claims of reviving extinct animals by leveraging Biotechnology. They aim to de-extinct the Woolly Mammoth, the Thylacine, and a host of other species. They aim to revive the past to save the future from imminent destruction which we humans are headed towards blinded by greed. Colossal Biosciences has an ambitious plan to bring back extinct species using cutting-edge gene technologies such as CRISPR-CAS9 and others, they aim to restore the ecological balance of Earth by repopulating it with extinct species, and they aim to re-introduce the Woolly Mammoth in the Pleistocene park in Siberia, Russia. The thought behind re-introducing the Woolly Mammoth is that after the reintroduction of the Woolly Mammoth, the melting rate of permafrost will slow down keeping the ground cooler by several degrees and trapping vast amounts of Carbon stores underneath because of the size of the Woolly Mammoth, they help in making the ground compact which prevents the escape of the Carbon and other Greenhouse gases by keeping it under the permafrost permanently hence slowing down Global Warming.
Wooly Mammoth, as shown at the Royal BC Museum, Victoria, British Columbia.
Harnessing the power of Science at the intersection of biology and technology
Colossal Biosciences aims to accomplish its mission by using gene editing tools such as CRISPR-CAS among others, which allows scientists to modify genes at unprecedented precision, by leveraging tools like CRISPR Colossal aims to reconstruct the Woolly Mammoth genome and fill in the missing parts of its genome with genome of Asiatic Elephant which is the closest living relative of the Woolly Mammoth. After the reconstruction of the genome, they aim to create an Embryo and implant it into a surrogate Asiatic Elephant mother which then gives birth to a Wooly Mammoth, there is no guarantee that the Experiment will be successful in practice but in theory, it is Viable. and if done properly it will be successful.
Restoring Ecological Balance
The revival of the Woolly Mammoth from extinctions holds immense scientific value and provides us a unique opportunity to restore the ecological balance of the Artic where the Woolly Mammoth once roamed before they became extinct 4000 years ago, this pilot project/ experiment will not only be a proof of concept for bringing back extinct species but also be a much-needed motivation or push for other companies to look at biodiversity and ecological conservation from a different angle rather than looking at the whale problem through the lens of wildlife conservation only which is still the need of the hour but looking at a problem as grave as biodiversity loss and climate change it would not hurt to have different perspectives.
The Melting Permafrost Crisis
The melting permafrost primarily due to global warming and climate change provides us with a range of problems we once thought had been solved, due to the melting permafrost the ground is set to release more than 1,600 billion tons of carbon-based greenhouse gases which will rapidly warm the atmosphere which will be detrimental to the survival of Human Population, additionally, it will also release viruses and bacteria unknown to mankind for which we have no defense against. A common example that has already happened to some extent is the reintroduction of Smallpox back into the Human population because Smallpox to date has been lying dormant in the far reaches of Siberia, and occasionally a human gets infected by Smallpox from an animal deceased due to Smallpox, the Melting permafrost may release viruses much worse than what we have dealt with.
The de-extinction plan of Colossal Bioscience raises some questions about the ethics and morality of bringing back a species from extinction to an environment that has adapted without the species, hence addressing the ethical concerns of de-extinction Colossal has an ethics and advisory board consisting of people from all walks of life. It can be safely said that Colossal is trying to do revolutionary, whether they succeed is a different topic but they sure have started a revolution.
