Definitely enjoyed the part about using de-extinction tech to preserve already alive species, the 2nd order effect of this research will hopefully be a massive reduction in cost to save struggling endangered populations, a net positive!
One extra challenge in mammoth de-extinction: the argument about tundra conservation seems to be speculative. Looking at Colossal's website, they don't appear to have any ecologists in leadership positions. The idea that mammoths preserve tundra by trampling soil is based upon studies in African elephants: studies which haven't been replicated in other megafauna. It's cart before the horse: isn't it more likely that the tundra retreated due to the end of the last Ice Age, and this habitat loss contributed to mammoth extinction?
Curious what your sources are for this quote -- “A lot of the edits we have to make are precise,” says Church, “and precision editing is not a healthy field yet.”
An Asian elephant genome (closest woolly mammoth relative) is 3.1 billion bases in length. A yeast genome is 12 million bases, a difference of 258x. It has taken more than a decade to chemically synthesize a yeast genome and put all the chromosomes together (see Yeast 2.0 project.)
It's certainly possible that DNA synthesis technology will become sufficiently advanced to create a woolly mammoth genome de novo, but it seems equally unlikely as the gene-editing angle. Colossal* is pursuing the gene-editing approach, which is why we focused on it.
Thank you for the answer. 258x is a lot, but maybe there is some hope. Maybe the synthesis technologies will rapidly develop as the sequencing did? Gene-edited Mammoth seems to be a lot of cumbersome work and the result will always be questionable.
Definitely enjoyed the part about using de-extinction tech to preserve already alive species, the 2nd order effect of this research will hopefully be a massive reduction in cost to save struggling endangered populations, a net positive!
One extra challenge in mammoth de-extinction: the argument about tundra conservation seems to be speculative. Looking at Colossal's website, they don't appear to have any ecologists in leadership positions. The idea that mammoths preserve tundra by trampling soil is based upon studies in African elephants: studies which haven't been replicated in other megafauna. It's cart before the horse: isn't it more likely that the tundra retreated due to the end of the last Ice Age, and this habitat loss contributed to mammoth extinction?
also really enjoyed/appreciated this thank you!
Curious what your sources are for this quote -- “A lot of the edits we have to make are precise,” says Church, “and precision editing is not a healthy field yet.”
The source is George Church.
Well no shit! (https://a16z.com/whats-in-the-water-at-the-church-lab-a-conversation-between-george-church-and-jorge-conde/) similar content
Why don't you talk about synthesizing entire chromosomes instead of genome editing?
It's a fair question.
An Asian elephant genome (closest woolly mammoth relative) is 3.1 billion bases in length. A yeast genome is 12 million bases, a difference of 258x. It has taken more than a decade to chemically synthesize a yeast genome and put all the chromosomes together (see Yeast 2.0 project.)
It's certainly possible that DNA synthesis technology will become sufficiently advanced to create a woolly mammoth genome de novo, but it seems equally unlikely as the gene-editing angle. Colossal* is pursuing the gene-editing approach, which is why we focused on it.
Thank you for the answer. 258x is a lot, but maybe there is some hope. Maybe the synthesis technologies will rapidly develop as the sequencing did? Gene-edited Mammoth seems to be a lot of cumbersome work and the result will always be questionable.