Category Archives: Genetic Engineering

BOISE, Idaho -- Three types of potatoes genetically engineered to resist the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine are safe for the environment and safe to eat, federal officials have announced.

The approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration late last week gives Idaho-based J.R. Simplot Company permission to plant the potatoes this spring and sell them in the fall.

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The company said the potatoes contain only potato genes, and that the resistance to late blight, the disease that caused the Irish potato famine, comes from an Argentine variety of potato that naturally produced a defense.

The three varieties are the Russet Burbank, Ranger Russet and Atlantic. Theyve previously been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

All three varieties have the same taste and texture and nutritional qualities as conventional potatoes, said Simplot spokesman Doug Cole.

Late blight thrives in the type of wetter conditions that led to the Irish potato famine in the 1840s. Potatoes were a main staple, but entire crops rotted in the field. Historical records say about a million people died of starvation and disease, and the number of Irish who emigrated might have reached several million.

Potatoes in modern times are considered the fourth food staple crop in the world behind corn, rice and wheat. Late blight continues to be a major problem for potato growers, especially in wetter regions. Fungicides have been used for decades to prevent the blight.

Simplot says the genetically engineered potatoes reduce the use of fungicide by half.

The company said the potatoes will also have reduced bruising and black spots, enhanced storage capacity, and a reduced amount of a chemical created when potatoes are cooked at high temperatures thats a potential carcinogen.

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Conventional potatoes can turn a dark color when cooked after they were kept cold for too long, a problem Simplot said the three new varieties reduce. The company also said the enhanced cold storage will likely have significant ramifications for the potato chip industry by reducing trucking costs.

There is no evidence that genetically modified organisms, known as GMOs, are unsafe to eat, but for some people, altering the genetic code of foods presents an ethical issue. McDonalds continues to decline to use Simplots genetically engineered potatoes for its French fries.

Simplot often notes the potatoes contain only potato genes, and not DNA from an unrelated organism. Organisms that contain DNA from an unrelated organism are defined as transgenic.

The Washington state-based Non-GMO Project that opposes GMOs and verifies non-GMO food and products said Simplots new potatoes dont qualify as non-GMO.

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There is a growing attempt on the part of biotechnology companies to distance themselves from the consumer rejection of GMOs by claiming that new types of genetic engineering ... are not actually genetic engineering, the group said in a statement.

The most recent federal approvals apply to Simplots second generation of Innate potatoes. The first generation that went through the federal approval process didnt include protection from late blight or enhanced cold storage.

The first generation of Innate potatoes has been sold in stores under the White Russet label. Cole said the company hasnt decided how it will market the second generation.

The company is currently at work on a third generation that Cole said will have protections against additional strains of late blight, all coming from genes within the potato species.

2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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FDA, EPA approve 3 types of genetically engineered potatoes - CBS News

These piglets could be protected from an infection that costs the swine industry billions each year. Image: Laura Dow, The Roslin Institute

For pig farmers, Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome is a disaster. Once dubbed the mystery swine disease, it emerged in the late 1980's on farms in Europe and the US and spread rapidly, causing piglets to die and adult pigs to be afflicted with fever, lethargy, and respiratory distress. It is a major problem facing pig farmers, costing the industry billions each year.

Now the same research organization that brought us Dolly the sheep thinks it may have a solution: Scientists at University of Edinburghs Roslin Institute have genetically engineered pigs to be resistant to the virus that causes the disease.

In a new paper published in PLOS Pathogens, the scientists reported that they used the genetic engineering technique CRISPR-Cas9 to delete a small slice of one particular gene that previous studies have shown plays a key role in enabling the PRRS virus to establish an infection. The edits were made early in the embryonic stage, removing the bit of gene in a laboratory while the piglets were still merely zygotes then implanting the embryos into mother pigs. Litters of healthy piglets with that genetic tweak have since been born, and some have even gone on to have their own litters with the inherited edit.

Early tests found that cells from the pigs were entirely resistant to infection from both major strains of the virus. The next step will be to test whether the pigs themselves are resistant to infection when actually exposed to the virus.

The study builds on earlier research that has showed pigs that entirely lack a protein called CD163 do not become ill when exposed to the PRRS virus. CD163 exists on the surface of immune cells called macrophages, and its presence seems to help PRRS take hold in a pigs body and spread. So the Roslin Institute researchers simply deleted a portion of the CD163 gene. So far, it has not shown any signs of adversely affecting the pigs.

In both the US and Europe, regulations and attitudes toward GMOs could make it hard to make such pigs commercially available. But if it works, the super pigs are sure to be in demand among both pig farmers and lovers of bacon.

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These Genetically Engineered Super Pigs Could Protect Your Bacon From Viral Disease - Gizmodo

Dogs have more genetic diseases than any other species on the planet. David Ishee told me this early in our conversation. His claim makes sense: theres no other animal that humans have purposefully bred with an emphasis on form over functionaesthetics over healthfor so long.

Centuries of inbreeding have left many dog breeds with a severely limited gene pool, and this lack of genetic diversity is to blame for disorders like brachycephaly in bulldogs, hyperuricemia in dalmations, and cardiomyopathy in boxers.

Ishee is a breeder from rural Mississippi whos on a mission to change all this.

Up until now, hes been using selective breeding to do so. His first big project involved mastiffs, which were once considered a warrior breed, but devolved into the docile, lazy pets we see today. They lost their health, their drive and their athleticism, Ishee said. My project as a breeder is to bring all that back to them.

He envisioned an ideal mastiff: 150-170 pounds, 30+ inches at the shoulders, tight-skinned, dry-mouthed, and free of inherited health problems. Eight years later, this super-mastiff (which is really just a return to what nature intended a mastiff to be) has become a reality.

Ishee has plans to expand his health-focused breeding to other dogs, but he wants a better tool to do so.

Enter gene editing.

Youd think that to tweak the genome of an animal, some serious training and education would be necessarymaybe a post-graduate biology degree or several years working in the lab of a large genetics company.

But in a prime example of both the democratization and demonetization of technology, Ishee taught himself to do genetic engineering right in his own backyard shed, using a kit and some DNA he ordered online.

I think every dog breeder wants better tools than just breeding. But everybody assumes its impossible, or crazy expensive, so I never considered actually trying, Ishee said. That changed after he saw a TED talk about genetic engineering, namely because of the ease and low cost of ordering custom synthesized DNA.

He continued, The biggest thing here is the collapsing price of DNA sequencing and synthesis. You can order synthetic DNA for about nine cents a base pair. When I ordered my construct a year and a half ago, I paid 23 cents a base pair. Six years before that it wouldve been $1.30 a base pair. When it gets down to pennies, people will be able to do much more complex things.

Its this very idea, thoughof anyone being able to do complex gene editing at home with supplies ordered onlinethats caused a tightening of regulations, most recently from the FDA.

As of mid-January, the FDA updated its guidance for animals produced using genome editing to classify the edited portion of the animals genome as a veterinary drug. This means the animals themselves are subject to the same regulations as new animal drugs.

While acknowledging that genome editing technology could have potentially profound beneficial effects on human and animal health, the FDA statement also mentions possible unwanted impacts on the environment and ecosystem, as well as on individual genomes.

The new guidelines threw a wrench into Ishees next project: to use gene editing to rid dalmations of hyperuricemia. A mutation on the dogs' SLC2A9 gene leads to excess uric acid in the blood, which causes painful bladder stones to form and can even cause the bladder to burst.

To breed out this mutation, a breeder would have to wait for a positive mutation to randomly appearand since its a closed and inbred population, that could take decades. CRISPR gene editing could do it in months.

Besides a series of complex approvals and permissions, though, the FDA regulations also involve hefty fees, reaching into six figures per animal. Its a sum thats feasible for a large corporation, but not so much for a breeder. No large corporation is likely to take on projects similar to Ishees, though, because theres not much money to be made. If pet owners are happyor unawareas is, why invest in creating healthier dogs?

The FDA guidance points out that gene editing has raised fundamental ethical questions about human and animal life. Its these questions that are at the root of the knee-jerk negative reaction many have when it comes to these topics. If we allow gene editing to cure diseases in dogs, will a slippery slope ensue? Will I be able to custom-design my pet in the future, and if yes, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Perhaps most significantly, if breeders like Ishee can prove that CRISPR is an easy way to rid dogs of health issues, will that pave the way for the technology to be more widely used on humans? Scientists in China produced gene-edited beagles in 2015, with one scientist saying their research had biomedical ends, as Dogs are very close to humans in terms of metabolic, physiological, and anatomical characteristics.

In Ishees opinion, genetic engineering and selective breeding arent all that different. CRISPR doesnt allow us to do anything we couldnt do before. Its just a bit easier, cheaper and faster, he said. Breeding gives you a lot less control and fewer degrees of freedom. But as far as the ethics is concerned, youre doing the exact same thing.

Speaking of ethicsif humans caused dogs to have all these health problems in the first place, and now we have the technology to fix those problems, dont we have a moral obligation to do so?

English bulldogs are riddled with serious health problems, from breathing difficulties to hip dysplasia to skin allergies. A study on the breed published in Canine Genetics and Epidemiology stated, The loss of genetic diversity and extreme changes in various regions of the genome will make it very difficult to improve breed health from within the existing gene pool.

The studys co-author told BBC News: "If you want to rebuild the breed, these are the building blocks you have, but they're very few. So if you're using the same old bricks, you're not going to be able to build a new house."

Ishee could be the first breeder to make brand-new bricksif the FDA lets himand other breeders would likely follow close behind.

As CRISPRs costs continue to go down, interest in the technology will go up, hatching hundreds of new backyard biohackers with ideas and projects of their own. Regulatory bodies will have to walk a fine line between protecting against misuse of the technology and allowing experimentation that could benefit both animals and humans.

That experimentation could just as easily be done by our next-door neighbor as by a government agency. Its an idea that will take some getting used to. As Ishee put it:

When you think about genetic engineering, you think of PhDs in white coats working in multi-million-dollar labs. The idea of a dog breeder in rural Mississippi doing genetic engineering in his shed is insane. But thats how you know youre in the future, right?

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Would You Want a Dog That Was Genetically Engineered to Be Healthier? - Singularity Hub

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MUNICH Microsoft founder Bill Gates said at the Munich Security Conference that genetic engineering could be a terrorist weapon and may kill tens of millions of people.

The next epidemic could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist intent on using genetic engineering to create a synthetic version of the smallpox virus or a super contagious and deadly strain of the flu, Gates made the remarks on Saturday.

Having spent billions of U.S. dollars in a philanthropic drive to improve health worldwide, Gates said that bio-terrorism could kill more than 30 million people in less than a year.

Furthermore, he predicted that there is a possibility our globe will experience such an outbreak in the next 10 to 15 years.

Some intelligence agencies have noticed that the Islamic State has been trying to develop biological weapons at its bases in Syria and Iraq, according to the Guardian.

Although the threat seems tiny due to technological support and manpower, the pressure from bio-terrorism has become more and more realistic in the past years.

Getting ready for a global pandemic is every bit as important as nuclear deterrence and avoiding a climate catastrophe. Innovation, cooperation and careful planning can dramatically mitigate the risks presented by each of these threats, said Gates.

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Genetic engineering could become terrorist weapon Bill Gates ... - InterAksyon

Last week, an international panel of scientists and ethicists concluded that changing heritable aspects in human genes would be permissible under certain conditions, going further than any previous mainstream group in endorsing the long-term aim of producing gene-edited babies ("Gene-edited babies: From red light to orange... and then green?"; Feb 20).

The most straightforward and unique advantage of genetic engineering is that it prevents the inheritance of devastating genetic diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, beta thalassemia or Huntington's disease.

It could also be used to modify genes to lower the risk of contracting diseases like HIV/AIDS.

However, it may be impossible to draw a line between using this technology for "therapy" and using it for "enhancement".

On practical grounds, genetic enhancement procedures could potentially lead to the widening of the rich-poor divide in society, as the wealthy would be able to engineer smarter, healthier and more attractive children, thus giving them even greater advantages in life.

From an ethical point of view, it is important to consider whether parents or medical professionals have the inherent right to alter a baby before it has been born.

As scientists focus on accomplishments and whether a thing can be done, they must also stop to ask if it should be done.

A baby cannot consent to having his body altered. Genetically engineering a child would be a violation of his fundamental right to bodily integrity.

Another ethical issue to consider would be the loss of individuality in a society that prides itself on conformity. This could open the door to eugenics.

It would be wise to exercise caution on this issue. As scientists focus on accomplishments and whether a thing can be done, they must also stop to ask if it should be done.

International scientific bodies should not only implement stringent regulations on genetic engineering practices, but also engage actively and effectively with politicians and the public to ensure a sturdy legal framework.

Denise Lee Hui Jean (Ms)

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Proceed with caution on genetic engineering - The Straits Times

CRISPR technology offers potential for genetic manipulation by Kpakpando Anyanwu | Feb 23 2017 | 11 hours ago

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats offer the potential to manipulate specific DNA sequences or entire genomes. At the University, use of this technology specifically focuses on practical significance.

[CRISPR] describes a DNA sequence pattern which was first reported in E. coli in 1987, but the acronym was not introduced until 2002 along with Cas (CRISPR-associated proteins), Assoc. Medical Prof. Wenhao Xu said in an email to the Cavalier Daily. The function of CRISPR/Cas was revealed in 2005 as the acquired immunity against viruses in prokaryotes. The system was reconstructed in a test tube as a tool for programmable genome editing in a landmark publication in 2012. Quickly, the system was shown to work effectively in both human cell lines and mice.

Xus focus with CRISPR has been intensively concentrated in the Genetically Engineered Murine Model core.

The GEMM began to adopt the CRISPR technology only one week after the [2012] publication on mice and made the first CRISPR mouse at U.Va. eight weeks after, Xu said. We have now successfully generated more than 100 CRISPR mice including knockouts and knock-ins.

CRISPR enables engineers to use mice as primary models mimicking both human structure and function that can then be used to study human diseases.

Following a process of differentiation, cells are typically fated to remain in specific organs and serve a particular function. Stem cells retain the potential to develop into different cell types. A distinct characteristic of CRISPR is its ability to change a cells fate.

In our body, we have about 200 different cell types and they all come from single cells called rhizomes, Asst. Medical Prof. Mazhar Adli said. Stem cells basically differentiate, and become all sorts of different cells in our body.

The Adli lab focuses on understanding genome-level regulation in development, specifically researching cancer pathogenesis and treatment. Use of the CRISPR/CAS9 system and the genetic manipulation it allows provide a means of monitoring cellular state transitions during normal and malignant development.

Due to its extensive use and benefits in the field of genetic engineering, CRISPR is regarded as an advanced system with the potential to alter the future of the medical field.

CRISPR is now becoming a widely-used technology tool for research and clinical trials, Adli said.

At the University, the technology offers insight into the relationship between genes, cells and disease facilitating the discovery of new ways for the improvement of health.

Genetic engineering is not new, and yet the CRISPR as a powerful and precise genome editing tool holds a tremendous promise for understanding and treating many human genetic disorders in the future, Xu said.

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Silent force behind U.Va. genetic engineering - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

New recommendations for human genome editing

Given how controversial genetically modified corn is, it's no wonder that the prospect of genetically modifying humans pushes a lot of people's buttons. But we already have gene therapies, and new technologies are making it faster, safer, and less expensive to modify the human genome in a range of ways. That has the science community and policymakers scrambling to set responsible guidelines for the use of genome editing.

In 2015, the International Summit on Human Gene Editing recommended holding off until the methods could be shown safe and effective, and until there was some public consensus about their use. Last week, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine released recommendations that suggested at least some of those criteria had been met.

The bottom line, according to report co-chair Richard Hynes of M.I.T., is this:

In all cases, the panel recommended public input on the appropriate uses of genome editing. But there remain enormous questions - what that public engagement should look like, how consensus might be defined or achieved, and how public opinion would translate into federal - or even international - policy.

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National Academy Calls for Public Input on Human Genetic ... - WCAI - WCAI

A cancer treatment with genetically engineered cells may change how we think about human modification.

By Michael White

When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein 200 years ago, there was no such thing as genetic engineering, and nobody knew what a gene was. But Shelleys sense that it is wrong, even monstrous, to tinker with the building blocks of life haunts genetic engineering today. This is especially true of human genetic engineering, which our popular culture often portrays as an obsession of mad scientists or a totalitarian tool of social control. Weve inherited our views of human genetic engineering from a time when it was just an idea, not a reality. But now that the reality is here, it turns out that widespread human genetic engineering, at least in its initial form, wont look as radical as we thought it would.

One sign that routine human genetic engineering has nearly arrived appeared earlier this month, when the Food and Drug Administration allowed French biotechnology company Cellectis to initiate United States clinical trials for a new cancer therapy. The therapy is based on so-called CAR-T cells (chimeric antigen receptor T cells), which are human immune cells genetically engineered to be cancer fighters. Various forms of CAR-T therapy have been in clinical trials for a few years now, and scientists first started trying to build the cells in the late 1980s. But whats notable about the Cellectis CAR-T cells is that they are the first off-the-shelf version. That is, unlike other CAR-T therapieswhich are custom products made by genetically engineering each patients own cellsCellectis manufactures CAR-T cells from healthy donors. Human genetic engineering is about to become a commodity trade.

Whats striking about CAR-T therapiesboth the custom form and Cellectis off-the-shelf versionis that they are simultaneously a radical departure and an incremental step from existing medical techniques. In practice, CAR-T therapies involve a familiar procedure, the transfer of cells into a patient to treat an illness. The first successful human blood transfusion was performed in 1818 (coincidentally, the year Frankenstein was published), and the first bone marrow transplant to treat leukemia occurred in the 1950s. Seen from this angle, CAR-T therapy is just a new variation on an old theme.

But though CAR-T therapy may look familiar, it is unprecedented. The first CAR-T treatments for cancer may become generally available within the year, despite some recent setbacks. This means that, over the coming years, there will likely be hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions, of people treated with genetically engineered human cells. This is what the first widespread use of human genetic engineering is going to look like.

Scientists have long anticipated this development because the powerful genetic tools that we routinely use to control biology in a petri dish have such obvious medical potential. We shut genes on or off at will, add or subtract them, and even build synthetic genes with new functions. The advantage of genetic engineering for medicine is that, unlike chemical drugs, cells are functioning systems with the ability to sense signals, to make decisions, and to perform complex behaviors. Cellular signal-sensing and decision-making are key built-in features of the cells that make up our immune system; CAR-T technology harnesses those abilities to help the immune system train its tremendous firepower on cancer cells. Genetic engineering is essentially a form of biological reprogramming, and scientists talk about building CAR-T cells with AND, NOT, and OR circuits; feedback control systems; and kill switches. No drug will ever have those capabilities.

Reprogramming human biology like this may sound ethically suspect in the abstract, but when were talking about a life-saving therapy for someones child or grandparent, its hard not to be sympathetic. Human genetic engineering is thus making its entrance to society as a medical treatment that, on the surface, seems incremental, avoiding the drama and questionable ethics that we expected.

There is an upside and downside to this. The obvious benefits of something like CAR-T therapy make it easier to set aside any knee-jerk moral disgust with genetic engineering, and instead think clearly about ethical boundaries. But the risk is that we become too complacent about the ethics, especially as genetic engineering for health purposes comes to seem normal.

For this reason, its fortunate that the U.S. National Academy of Sciences has just released a report laying out ethical guidelines for human genetic engineering. Recognizing that human genetic engineering is no longer just a fantasy, the report lays out two key questions we should ask ourselves as we consider whether particular cases of human genetic engineering are justified.

Most importantly, we should ask: Is the genetic change limited to one person, or will it be passed on to future generations? Patients who receive CAR-T cells dont transmit the genetic edits on to their children, and thus each patient can choose for herself whether to accept any risks posed by genetic engineering. But children who are born from genetically modified embryos will pass on those modifications, together with any associated health risks or social stigmas, to their descendants. The National Academy report therefore argues that we should set a much higher ethical bar for genetic edits to human embryos, only allowing them as a last resort to prevent certain inherited genetic diseases.

The second question to pose is: What is the purpose of the genetic editsto cure disease or to simply enhance human abilities? The report recommends that human genetic engineering should only be aimed at curing disease, and that genome editing for enhancement should not be allowed at this time. That rules out genetic engineering to, say, make someone a better athlete. Why? The report provides two reasons: First, the technology still poses risks that arent outweighed by any benefits of enhancement. And second, the public doesnt seem ready to go there yet. A society in which only the rich have access to genetic enhancements, or, conversely, where everyone is under tremendous social pressure to buy such enhancements, sounds as dystopic as science fiction.

But the question of what qualifies as enhancement is almost certainly going to be a sticking point, because there is a wide range of things you can do between curing cancer and producing super-athletes. What if a company sells a product like CAR-T cells that, rather than fighting cancer, prevents it instead? If you use genetic engineering to lower your cancer risk, is that enhancement? If it is, why should we reject it?

The National Academy report purposely leaves the answer to such questions unanswered, recognizing that there are inevitable differences, rooted in national cultures, that will shape perspectives on whether and how to use these technologies. Our national cultures perspective has been shaped by 200 years of science fiction. But as human genetic engineering becomes realtaking the form of a life-saving cancer treatmentwe will get used to it, and our perspective is likely to change.

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This Is What Real Human Genetic Engineering Looks Like - Pacific Standard

The woolly mammoth vanished from the Earth 4,000 years ago, but now scientists say they are on the brink of resurrecting the ancient beast in a revised form, through an ambitious feat of genetic engineering.

Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo, said Prof George Church, the scientist leading the de-extinction effort. Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. Were not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years.

Church said that these [genetic] modifications could help preserve the Asian elephant, which is endangered, in an altered form. However, others have raised ethical concerns about the project.

Matthew Cobb, professor of zoology at the University of Manchester, said: The proposed de-extinction of mammoths raises a massive ethical issue the mammoth was not simply a set of genes, it was a social animal, as is the modern Asian elephant. What will happen when the elephant-mammoth hybrid is born? How will it be greeted by elephants?

Church predicts that age-reversal will become a reality within 10 years as a result of the new developments in genetic engineering.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post:Woolly mammoth on verge of resurrection, scientists reveal

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Woolly mammoth 2.0 could be walking the Earth within 10 years - Genetic Literacy Project

Woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), a model of an extinct Ice Age mammoth. Photograph: Andrew Nelmerm/Getty Images/Dorling Kindersley

The woolly mammoth vanished from the Earth 4,000 years ago, but now scientists say they are on the brink of resurrecting the ancient beast in a revised form, through an ambitious feat of genetic engineering.

Speaking ahead of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston this week, the scientist leading the de-extinction effort said the Harvard team is just two years away from creating a hybrid embryo, in which mammoth traits would be programmed into an Asian elephant.

Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo, said Prof George Church. Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. Were not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years.

The creature, sometimes referred to as a mammophant, would be partly elephant, but with features such as small ears, subcutaneous fat, long shaggy hair and cold-adapted blood. The mammoth genes for these traits are spliced into the elephant DNA using the powerful gene-editing tool, Crispr.

Until now, the team have stopped at the cell stage, but are now moving towards creating embryos although, they said that it would be many years before any serious attempt at producing a living creature.

Were working on ways to evaluate the impact of all these edits and basically trying to establish embryogenesis in the lab, said Church.

Since starting the project in 2015 the researchers have increased the number of edits where mammoth DNA has been spliced into the elephant genome from 15 to 45.

We already know about ones to do with small ears, subcutaneous fat, hair and blood, but there are others that seem to be positively selected, he said.

Church said that these modifications could help preserve the Asian elephant, which is endangered, in an altered form. However, others have raised ethical concerns about the project.

Matthew Cobb, professor of zoology at the University of Manchester, said: The proposed de-extinction of mammoths raises a massive ethical issue the mammoth was not simply a set of genes, it was a social animal, as is the modern Asian elephant. What will happen when the elephant-mammoth hybrid is born? How will it be greeted by elephants?

Church also outlined plans to grow the hybrid animal within an artificial womb rather than recruit a female elephant as a surrogate mother - a plan which some believe will not be achievable within the next decade.

We hope to do the entire procedure ex-vivo (outside a living body), he said. It would be unreasonable to put female reproduction at risk in an endangered species.

He added that his lab is already capable of growing a mouse embryo in an artificial womb for 10 days - halfway through its gestation period.

Were testing the growth of mice ex-vivo. There are experiments in the literature from the 1980s but there hasnt been much interest for a while, he said. Today weve got a whole new set of technology and were taking a fresh look at it.

Churchs team is proposing to rear the embryo in an artificial womb which seems ambitious to say the least the resultant animal would have been deprived of all the pre-birth interactions with its mother, said Cobb.

The woolly mammoth roamed across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America during the last Ice Age and vanished about 4,000 years ago, probably due to a combination of climate change and hunting by humans.

Their closest living relative is the Asian, not the African, elephant.

De-extincting the mammoth has become a realistic prospect because of revolutionary gene editing techniques that allow the precise selection and insertion of DNA from specimens frozen over millennia in Siberian ice.

Church helped develop the most widely used technique, known as Crispr/Cas9, that has transformed genetic engineering since it was first demonstrated in 2012. Derived from a defence system bacteria use to fend off viruses, it allows the cut and paste manipulation of strands of DNA with a precision not seen before.

Gene editing and its ethical implications is one of the key topics under discussion at the Boston conference.

Church, a guest speaker at the meeting, said the mammoth project had two goals: securing an alternative future for the endangered Asian elephant and helping to combat global warming. Woolly mammoths could help prevent tundra permafrost from melting and releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

They keep the tundra from thawing by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in, said Church. In the summer they knock down trees and help the grass grow.

The scientists intend to engineer elephant skin cells to produce the embryo, or multiple embryos, using cloning techniques. Nuclei from the reprogrammed cells would be placed into elephant egg cells whose own genetic material has been removed. The eggs would then be artificially stimulated to develop into embryos.

Church predicts that age-reversal will become a reality within 10 years as a result of the new developments in genetic engineering.

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Woolly mammoth on verge of resurrection, scientists reveal - The Guardian