How science can recreate a species of mammoth that went extinct 4,000 years ago

The challenge that the American Colossal, launched on Monday, will try to overcome with the help of genetic manipulation techniques, is for the mammoth, a species that became extinct 4,000 years ago, to retreat into Arctic soil.

“Colossal will launch a viable and efficient extinction model and will be the first company to apply advanced genetic modification techniques to reintegrate furry mammoths in the arctic tundra,” the company said.

Extinction, the concept of creating an animal similar to an extinct species through genetics, is not unanimous in the scientific community. Some researchers doubt its usefulness or worry about the risks of its application.

Colossal, created by businessman Ben Lam and geneticist George Church, will attempt to insert DNA sequences from a woolly mammoth (derived from a remains preserved in Siberian soil) into the genome of Asian elephants, to create a hybrid species. The DNA of the Asian elephant and the furry mammoth is 99.6% similar, the company claims on its website.

Colossal predicts that creating and reintroducing these hybrid snakes into the tundra should allow “the restoration of extinct ecosystems, which could help combat and even reverse the effects of climate change.”

The modified woolly mammoth could “give new life to Arctic grasslands,” which, according to the company, captures carbon dioxide and removes methane, two greenhouse gases.

The biotech company was able to raise $15 million in private money to reach its goal, which some experts have greeted with skepticism. “A lot of problems will arise with this process,” biologist Beth Shapiro told the New York Times. “This is not extinction. There will never be a giant on Earth again. If it succeeds, it will be a fictional elephant, an entirely new and genetically modified organism,” Tori Herridge, a biologist and paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, wrote on Twitter.