To do this, they will be crossed with an Indian elephant.

About four thousand years ago, mammoths disappeared from the face of the Earth, but genetic engineering methods are likely to revive these legendary animals in the coming years. This forecast was made by specialists from Harvard University. Soon, experts hope to get a hybrid of an elephant and a mammoth.

Experts plan to endow Indian elephants with some of the traits of a woolly mammoth, and if this experiment is successful, this will be a very significant step towards recreating "full-fledged" mammoths. Among the features of the ancient animal that the hybrid will inherit, experts name small ears, subcutaneous fat, long shaggy hair and blood adapted to cold conditions. To create "elephant mammoths", the Crispr technology will be used, which various scientists resort to in the course of most high-profile genetic experiments that have become known in recent times.

The scientists announced their plans during a speech at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. According to them, work on the creation of a hybrid of a mammoth and an elephant has been underway since 2015, and during this time many intermediate successes have been achieved.

Many experts are somewhat skeptical about projects dedicated to the "revival of mammoths." Some argue that at this stage in the development of science, this is simply unattainable, while others tend to see such promises as more of a “PR stunt” than a real desire to promote science - after all, from a huge number of mammoth animals that died out thousands of years ago, by and large, only their “hype” distinguishes them. Also, many are concerned about the ethical side of the issue - elephants (and presumably mammoths) are social and fairly highly developed animals, and it is not known how happy the life of a hybrid will be. Despite all this, various scientists, including Russian ones, often show interest in reviving the ancient giants.

MOSCOW, March 27 - RIA Novosti. For the first time, American geneticists were able to successfully transplant some of the mammoth genes extracted from DNA fragments of ice age giants into the genome of an ordinary elephant cell and multiply them, according to the online publication LiveScience.

"A simple DNA transplant in itself does not mean much. We want to understand what the organs of a mammoth will look like, for which we need to understand how we should make these cells turn into body tissues," explained George Church from Harvard University (USA). ).

Church's lab in mid-October last year announced the start of an ambitious and controversial project to "resurrect" mammoths. As part of this scientific adventure, Church and his colleagues are trying to revive the Ice Age calling card by transplanting fragments of restored mammoth DNA into the cage of an ordinary African elephant.

This is not the first such study for a Harvard professor - in past years, he has already tried to bring passenger pigeons extinct at the beginning of the 20th century back to life. Despite great progress towards the "resurrection" of the disappeared bird, Church had to stop these experiments due to ethical considerations and community pressure.

As the scientist himself explains, the chances for the resurrection of mammoths appeared due to the emergence in 2012 of the revolutionary technology of "rewriting" the genome CRISPR / CAS, which allows you to change and delete arbitrary genes in the DNA of mammals in a pointwise manner.

Using this technique, Church and colleagues were able to successfully insert into the genome of elephant skin cells genes believed to be responsible for typical mammoth traits—small ears, thick blubber, long hair, and brown color. The cells survived this transformation and now scientists are thinking about how they can be turned into real skin tissue.

If this experiment is successful, then Church's group will try to form an artificial embryo based on these cells, which will subsequently be transplanted into the uterus of a surrogate mother-elephant or, with the protests of animal advocates, into an artificial uterus, the prototypes of which are being created today.

As Church notes, if these embryos survive, his science team will try to create an elephant that could live in the Arctic climate. This, according to the biologist, will help us save them from extinction, significantly expanding the habitat of heat-loving proboscis animals and allowing them to be placed where there are still almost no people.

The researcher emphasizes that there is no talk of a real resurrection of the mammoth - the chances of restoring the full genome are not too great, and the results of experiments in his laboratory will remain hybrids of an elephant and a mammoth.

Although many scientists oppose the idea of ​​resurrecting extinct ancient species, a group of researchers from Harvard University announced that they are trying to do this with a woolly mammoth.

What are scientists working on now?

Scientists announced their intention to bring these megafauna monsters back from the dead ahead of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston this week. They explained that their goal is to use CRISPR, a popular gene-editing tool, to produce an elephant-mammoth hybrid embryo.

The work of scientists, in essence, is now at the stage of the cell. They are experimenting with different combinations of elephant and mammoth genes. The embryos have not yet been created, but according to the project leader, it will take only two years.

However, it will probably be many more years before any of these extinct animals are allowed to grow or simply grow into adults.

Mammoths

But when these animals are nevertheless resurrected, they will not be called real mammoths, they will most likely be hybrids. As such, they are expected to be very furry elephant-like creatures, if the embryos are indeed based on their genes. Hypothetical animals have already been dubbed Mammophants (from the English. Mammophants).

Given the genes scientists use, the new animals will look more like elephants than their extinct cousins. But the difference between these hypothetical animals is that they will have smaller ears, a significant layer of subcutaneous fat and the ability to adapt to cold climates. This suggests that they will be "placed" in northern climates, just like in the good old days.

Nevertheless, despite the feeling of unreality of what is happening, this is certainly a good start for laying the Pliocene park. If this mad scheme is ultimately successful, humanity may be able to bring back a being whose ancestors were last alive many thousands of years ago.

In order to successfully turn one of these embryos into a full-fledged mammoth, scientists are going to grow it in an artificial womb, instead of using an elephant as a surrogate mother. Currently, this method is untested, but scientists hope to follow this path so as not to endanger any individuals of the elephant population, which are now endangered.

Ethical Issues

This project has raised some ethical issues, in particular the question of whether we should return such massive animals to modern environments. In fairness, it should be said that today no one can know how modern animals will react to mammoths roaming around.

Nevertheless, the idea that scientists will be able to reach a new biotechnical level is certainly intriguing. Stay tuned ladies and gentlemen, and if you have a better name for these hybrids, please share your ideas with us.

This possibility was seriously discussed in 2013. Speaking at the TedXDeExtinction conference, Harvard geneticist and CRISPR trailblazer George Church outlined a roadmap for the partial rebirth of the mammoth. According to Church, scientists have already partially deciphered the mammoth genome based on DNA extracted from ancient bones and other remains. This information can be used to edit the genes of the Asian elephant and give the animal a number of characteristics characteristic of its extinct relative, such as size and resistance to cold.

Journalists called Church's plan "the resurrection of mammoths", but the scientist spoke more about the hybridization of extinct and modern species, notes Wall Street Journal. Even if the experiment is successful, the resulting animal will not be a genetic analogue of the mammoth. Nevertheless, the speech of the scientist brought the idea of ​​the revival of extinct species from the pages of science fiction into real life.

Despite the hype around mammoths, the first species to return from oblivion may not be a furry elephant, but passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius).

This bird has long become a symbol of the destructive influence of civilization on the wildlife of the United States. There were once billions of them in North America, but intensive hunting has completely destroyed this species. The last individual, Martha the dove, died in captivity in 1914.

American scientists intend to bring back passenger pigeons using CRISPR technology. The resurrection project was led by Beth Shapiro, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz and author of the book"The Science of Species Resurrection" . Shapiro's laboratory studies the genomes of extinct animals, extracting material from fragments hundreds of thousands of years old. This is not an easy task, because after the death of an organism, its DNA quickly decays.

For the pigeon project, the team took samples from carcasses and stuffed passenger pigeons that are kept in museum collections. The DNA was incomplete, but answered many of the researchers' questions. Comparing it with the genome of the living striped pigeon (Patagioenas fasciata), scientists identified 32 unique DNA fragments. Among them were genes that enabled the birds to withstand the disease and stress that come with living in large flocks.

In addition, this study disproved the assumptions of experts that a genetic flaw led to the extinction of passenger pigeons. Nothing of the kind was found in the deciphered DNA.

Resurrection Plan

The team's next task will be to introduce the found genes into the genome of the striped-tailed pigeon, the closest modern relative of the extinct species. However, the technology must first be tested on common rock pigeons, introducing the CRISPR-Cas9 tool into their DNA for the first time in history. This stage takes place in Australia under the guidance of geneticist Ben Novak.

In the first experiments, editing led to the death of most embryos, but gradually the results improved. When scientists have a sufficient herd of edited sizars, they will try to instill in them some of the characteristics of a passenger pigeon. The researchers then set out to create birds that look and act like passenger pigeons but are descended from striped ancestors. According to Nowak, this creature should be named Patagioenas neoectopistes.

Ethics

Experts acknowledge that the resurrection of species raises a number of questions. When Beth Shapiro taught graduate students in ecology in 2014, she asked everyone in the group to give a talk about an extinct species and explain why it should be brought back. Graduate students mainly referred to the ecological role of the selected animals or their value for tourism.

However, according to Shapiro, this is not enough. We can bring back a species, but it's pointless if we don't know why it died out and we haven't eliminated the cause of the extinction.

For example, there are still many introduced predators on the island of Mauritius, so reviving dodos does not make sense: their eggs will be quickly eaten. A similar problem awaits passenger pigeons: the forests where they lived have long been replaced by cities and farmlands. Another problem is that the resurrected mammoths and pigeons have no one to learn from the behavior characteristic of these species.

Therefore, the interest of Beth Shapiro is associated not with the resurrection of extinct creatures, but with the preservation of modern ecosystems, which such research will contribute to. For example, passenger pigeon immunity genes could help many endangered modern birds. Her colleague Ben Novak, on the contrary, is convinced that this species is worthy of resurrection in itself.

Russian and Korean scientists intend an ancient species of horse that became extinct about 40,000 years ago. The basis for the experiment will be a well-preserved animal carcass found in permafrost. If the "resurrection" succeeds, it will be an important milestone for the eventual revival of the mammoth.

Russia plans to open a brand new laboratory (worth $5.9 million) to resurrect the woolly mammoth and other extinct animals.

Plans for a 'world-class' research center in Yakutsk will be unveiled next month by President Vladimir Putin at a major investment forum.

Along with the woolly mammoth, Russian geneticists intend to study several other extinct species, including the woolly rhinoceros, which disappeared about 10,000 years ago.

The cloning labs - some of them buried deep in the Yakutian permafrost - should expand the research of Russian scientists working with South Korean specialists to bring back long-extinct mammals.

Image caption:Scientists have long thought about the possibility of cloning a mammoth using DNA preserved in Arctic permafrost. Russia plans to open a new laboratory for the study of ancient DNA

Yakutsk - the capital of the diamond-mining republic of Sakha - is a 'hot spot' for animals preserved in the permafrost. Of all the remains of Pleistocene and Holocene animals with preserved soft tissues found in Russia, 80 percent of the finds were made in this region.

The DNA of ancient animals has been preserved for tens of thousands of years in their remains, enclosed in frozen soil.

Scientists hope that DNA extracted from these remains will provide a better understanding of the biology of one of the largest creatures to have ever roamed the Earth.

The woolly mammoth existed at the same time as the first people who hunted it as a source of food, and used the bones and tusks to build dwellings and create tools and tools.

The weight of a woolly mammoth reached six tons. In the mainland, it disappeared at the end of the Pleistocene, about 10 thousand years ago.

There is reason to believe that mammoths lived on St. Paul's Island (Alaska) as early as 5,600 years ago, and on Wrangel Island in Russia only 4,000 years ago.

It is believed that the woolly mammoth became extinct due to the reduction of its natural habitat caused by climate change, and also that it fell prey to primitive hunters.

Now there are several international projects actively working on the task of resurrecting ancient animals based on preserved DNA.

The goal of the new Russian lab is to ‘study extinct animals based on living cells and resurrect animals such as the woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, cave lion, and long-extinct species of horses’.

Expert Lena Grigorieva said: “Nowhere else in the world is there such a unique material.”

“We are not only studying Pleistocene animals. At the same time, research is being carried out on the history of the settlement of the north-east of Russia. The peoples of the North have a unique ancient genetic structure. Such studies will help in the study of rare genetic diseases, their diagnosis and prevention.”

Details of the project to create the Center will be revealed at the Fourth Eastern Economic Forum, which will open in Vladivostok on 11 September. The forum is held on the basis of the Russian North-Eastern Federal University.

The university maintains close ties with the South Korean biotechnology research organization SOOAM Biotech Research Foundation, led by cloning expert Professor Hwang Woo-Suk.

Russian scientists are also interacting with Harvard University geneticist Professor George Church, who plans to introduce woolly mammoth genes into an Asian elephant embryo by 2020. If successful, a hybrid of an elephant and a mammoth will be obtained.

It is planned to release the restored species into the wild in the Pleistocene Park in Siberia, where they are going to restore the natural environment of the north of Yakutia, which existed during the life of mammoths.