The Colossal Bioscience company modified gray wolves using the Crispr-CAs9 genetic editing technique and obtained a wolf that looks like the giant wolf but is not. He does not have all his genome, he told Efe Lluís Montoliu, a researcher at the National Biotechnology Center in Madrid.
Why is it not considered “de -sextinction”?
Speaking to the Science Media Center of New Zealand Scientific Resources, the director of the Paleogenetic Laboratory of Otago (New Zealand), Espic Rawlence, clarifies that to welcome a species it is necessary to clone it before, and the problem is that it is impossible to clone extinct animals because the DNA is not well preserved enough, Efe published.
“What Colossal Biosciences has produced is a gray wolf with similar characteristics to those of a giant wolf but it is not a reintroduced giant wolf, but a hybrid,” ditch the paleogenetist.
On the other hand, Philip Seddon, although the company speaks of ‘welcoming’ and “has carried out amazing technological advances, the nice puppies are not giant wolves, but genetically modified gray wolves,” he says.
In the same way, the Anam animal genetics expert, Hugo Oswaldo Toledo Alvarado, who told UNAM Global that considers it incorrect to use the term “de -sextization”, is expressed, since it is gray wolves with modifications in color and size.
Toledo Alvarado details that it was the modification of a species to have similar physical characteristics. And he adds that there is no scientific publication that supports these findings.
However, with this achievement three advances were obtained, said David René Romero Camarena, from the Center for Genomic Sciences of the Morelos Campus of the UNAM, to UNAM Global Magazine:
- The genome of the terrible wolf was sequented, extinct 10 thousand years ago
- 20 genetic changes were introduced in 14 gray wolf genes to replicate the characteristics of the terrible wolf
- A cloning process was used to create puppies similar to terrible wolf
Other species that could relive
The Colossal Bioscience company is a start-up focused on “resuscitating” extinct species to develop the ability to recover lost fauna and study the adaptation of these animals to extreme conditions, EFE notes.
The other species that could “deduce”, according to the company are:
- Lanudo Mammut, 3.5 meters high and six tons, with a 70 -year life expectancy
- Dodo bird, 81-97 centimeters, a weight of 13 to 23 kilograms and life expectancy of 10 to 30 years
- Wolf of Tasmania, which measured 51 to 69 centimeters, weight of 16 to 29 kilograms and with life expectancy from 8 to 11 years
The ethical debate of reviving species
But for Montoliu, the question to be asked still: “Why do you want to do this? Do we want to do a zoo of impossible creatures? This issue should worry and see that it is not something that is being answered,” says Montoliu in an interview with Efe.
The geneticist remembers that, according to Colossal and its founder George Church, the goal of returning mammoths to nature is to “combat climate change, piss the tundra, compact the terrain and prevent greenhouse gases from escaping”, and that can “be more or less credible.”
“They seem to have solved many of the problems of genetic multiedion because their animals survive,” said Montoliu.
Other questions posed by UNAM Global are:
- Can these species adapt to a modern ecosystem?
- Who will decide on your well -being and freedom?
- Who defines which species revive?
- Will it be a scientific, democratic or commercial process?
Romero Camarena wonders if it is conservation or simply trying genetic modification technologies.