Colossal Wooly Mammoth Resurrection Project Revealed

Tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm and geneticist Dr George Church announced Colossal, a $15 million project to resurrect the wooly mammoth.

Wooly Mammoth Resurrection Project

Mammoth Resurrection Project Announced. “Technology and software entrepreneur Ben Lamm and world-renowned geneticist Dr George Church founded Colossal – a project hoping to use genetic engineering to alter the genome of Asian elephants to turn them into modern-day “mammoths”.” [Mirror]

Church Has Used CRISPR Tech For Gene Editing. “Church has been at the cutting edge of genomics, including the use of CRISPR, the revolutionary gene editing tool that has been described as rewriting the code of life, to alter the characteristics of living species. His work creating pigs whose organs are compatible with the human body means a kidney for a patient in desperate need of a transplant might one day come from a swine.” [WHDH]

$15 Million Project To Bring Back Multiple Extinct Species. “A variety of investors and Lamm as CEO have come together to pump in an initial sum of $15 million in seed funding for this start-up. The company intends to bring several extinct species back to life to restore lost ecosystems and slow climate change reports the Times.” [TimesNow]

Plan Is For First Hybrid Calf In Six Years. “Colossal told National Geographic that the first hybrid calf is expected in six years, while a self-sustaining herd could take decades.” [Sky]

Project Will Use Skin Cells of Asian Elephants. “Researchers plan to do this by taking skin cells from Asian elephants, which are threatened with extinction, and putting them into stem cells with frozen mammoth DNA to create an embryo.” [Independent]

Hair and Tusks To Be Extracted From Permafrost. “Other mammoth features like insulating layers of hair and fat and gigantic tusks will be engineered using genomes extracted from the permafrost excavation that introduced Baby Lyuba, the best-preserved woolly mammoth, to the world. ” [News 18]