De-extinction: A mammoth task

As I write this column, I have kept the 1993 Steven Spielberg-directed Jurassic Park on pause. Usually, I don’t need any excuse to watch this sci-fi marvel time and again but this time, there is a reason: It’s topical. The US’ spy agency -- Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) -- is funding research to bring back to life the long-extinct woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), just like dinosaurs in the movie.  

Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences -- which is working to “see the woolly mammoth thunder upon the tundra once again” -- has received financial support from the CIA’s investment arm In-Q-Tel. The start-up, which also counts the Winklevoss twins and actor Chris Hemsworth as its investors, “hopes to use advanced genetic sequencing” to resurrect “the giant, ice-age mammoth”, The Intercept reported. Colossal has also an interest in resurrecting the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger — a wolf-like marsupial that went extinct in the 1930s — and the dodo bird: A process that some call “de-extinction”.

On the other hand, In-Q-Tel’s senior executives in a blog post said: “Strategically, it’s less about the mammoths and more about the capability”.

But why pour life into those long-dead elephantids? And how?

Around 2000 BCE when the Indus Valley Civilization was still alive and thriving, far away on a remote island in what is now Siberia, the last member of the woolly mammoth species died. Interestingly, a nature reserve on the Kolyma River in the Sakha Republic of Russia, in northeastern Siberia -- called the Pleistocene Park -- has been preparing for the return of the beast since 1996, by mimicking the vegetation and conditions that prevailed during the last ice age.  

But de-extinction is easier said than done: One can’t bring back the woolly mammoth the way it last survived. Still, by using DNA editing tools, scientists can insert cold-resistant characteristics into the DNA sequences of Asian elephants (its closest surviving relative) and make them genetically similar to woolly mammoths – in other words, proxy mammoths.

In Jurassic Park, industrialist John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) explained that dinosaurs were cloned via extracting dinosaur DNA from prehistoric mosquitoes preserved in amber. DNA from frogs was then used to fill in gaps in the genome. But there lies a major scientific inconsistency: DNA breaks down quickly, so there’s not much to sequence from fossils that are millions of years old.

With woolly mammoths, that concept appears to be less far-fetched. Some woolly mammoth specimens are well-preserved because they lived until relatively recently and that too in a frozen world, keeping significant parts of their DNA intact -- but not all.

According to Colossal Chief Executive Officer Ben Lamm (quoted as saying by The Independent), the company expects to have about 90 per cent of the woolly mammoth’s genome.

There is another way: Reverse engineering. Modern chickens are the closest living specimen of Tyrannosaurus rex, one of the most ferocious carnivores that the Earth has ever seen. A few years ago, scientists at Yale managed to manipulate chicken embryos to grow snouts similar to those of dinosaurs, and not beaks. Bit by bit, this method may create a living animal that is neither a chicken nor a dinosaur, but somewhat similar to both. Similarly, researchers can work on mammoth-lookalike elephants.

Echoing such an idea, Mr Lamm said: “We’re not cloning mammoths, we’re not creating exact copies of mammoths or exact copies of thylacines (The Independent).” He said the company is creating “functional mammoths” that will occupy the same ecological space that mammoths once did.

Still, a lot of processes need to go right to bring de-extinction plans to fruition, including successfully creating such a viable, healthy animal, and that too in enough numbers, so that they can be released into the wild.

Even if we could bring back extinct animals, it doesn’t necessarily mean we should. According to critics, even if scientists engineer healthy proxy mammoths, their natural habitat no longer exists — and, even if it does (like the Pleistocene Park), there is no guarantee that such animals will thrive in an unfamiliar ecosystem. Is there enough ice-age vegetation to feed them? Will there be microbes just like those millions of years ago in their guts to help them digest? There are many variables.

Besides, de-extinction —in its current form — is an excessively time- and capital-consuming process, and has yet to be successful for any singular species.

Some scientists and environmentalists are of the view that instead of correcting our old mistakes like killing dodos into extinction or slaying mammoths in large numbers for food and hide, researchers should focus on saving animals that are in imminent danger today. The technology that makes de-extinction possible can be used to lift the numbers of critically endangered species, such as Malabar Civet (Viverra civettina), Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis), and Indian Vulture (Gyps indicus), and add to their genetic diversity.

Also, there is the threat of creating Frankenstein’s monster: We all have watched Jurassic Park and the scary scene in which T rex escapes the paddock.

I am going to rewatch it. Play…