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Blake, Wm. Frontispiece to The Elephant, Ballad the First. 1802.

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Scientists have achieved a significant step toward de-extincting the wooly mammoth by creating embryonic-like stem cells from Asian elephant cells. This innovation enables the production of elephant sperm and eggs in the lab, allowing for gene editing without harm to living elephants.

Colossal Biosciences, a startup, aims to develop “functional mammoths” with traits like the wooly mammoth’s fur and fat layers to survive in cold climates.

This development is crucial due to the limited number of Asian elephants in the wild, which constrains access to necessary genetic materials. Despite progress, the ecological implications and feasibility of reintroducing mammoth-like creatures into modern ecosystems remain debated among scientists.

George Church, Harvard geneticist and Colossal cofounder: “With so few fertile female elephants, we really don’t want to interfere with their reproduction at all. We want to do it independently.”

Eriona Hysolli, head of biological sciences at Colossal: “It feels very significant. This is a very big deal.”

Vincent Lynch, developmental biologist at the University at Buffalo: “I have no doubt that given enough time and money they will overcome the technical challenges of making a woolly-mammoth-looking elephant.”