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Woolly mammoths have been extinct for millennia, but with 21st century genetic engineering techniques, scientists want to bring them back to Earth.

Woolly mammoths could come back to life on Earth if they depend on a group of scientists and entrepreneurs who have already received US$15 million (about R$78 million) from sponsors for it.

The amount allocated to the Colossal company will help in the development of genetic engineering technologies that will enable a mammoth hybrid with an Asian elephant to be as close to the mammoth that has ever lived on the planet. Having achieved this goal, the next step would be to fill parts of Siberia with these animals, demanding environmental rebalancing.

It will make all the difference in the world, George Church, a biologist at Harvard University Medical School in the United States, said in an interview with the American newspaper The New York Times.

For the past eight years, Church has spent much of its time managing the project along with other enthusiasts of the idea. The starting point of the work will be genetic material from frozen remains of mammoths that died several millennia ago.

Credit, Getty Images

Asian elephants are close relatives of extinct woolly mammoths

But there are those who oppose the idea, citing ethical problems in saving giant animals from extinction. It is also unlikely to know how these mammoths would behave on Earth today. There are so many problems that will get in everyones way, Beth Shapiro, a paleontologist at the University of California, also told The New York Times.

The idea of bringing back the woolly mammoth was first expressed by the church in 2013. At the time, researchers were studying DNA fragments found in fossils in an attempt to reassemble the genomes of extinct species.

Church, who studies new ways to read and edit DNA, wondered: Is it possible to bring an extinct species back to life by adapting the genome of a relative that exists today?

Mammoths seem like the best candidates to you because they are a close ancestor of todays Asian elephants: they share a common ancestor that lived about 6 million years ago. In addition, mammoth DNA can be easily found in Siberia.

Biologists say the mammoths may also help restore ecological balance: Global warming has increased temperatures in the tundra of Siberia and North America, leading to an accelerated release and large amounts of carbon dioxide.

Credit, PA Media

giant fossils in the laboratory; There are many well-preserved remains of these animals in Siberia.

Much of it in todays tundra is moss, but used to be pasture in the times of mammoths. Biologists believe that the mammoth acted as a protector of this ecosystem, maintaining pasture by clearing moss, plucking trees and releasing abundant excrement that fertilized the soil. With the return of these animals, all of this could be recovered and carbon dioxide emissions decreased.

The scientists early ideas attracted the attention of journalists, but not investors: he only managed to raise US$100,000 (R$520,000) for his research. Honestly, I intended to go slow, Church said.

However, in 2019, he met Ben Lam, the founder of Texas AI Hypergiant Company, who, after reading news about the project, showed interest in helping this rescue of the giant animal. After a day in the lab and spending a lot of time with George, we were so excited, said Lam, who then began founding the company Colossal.

Credit, Getty Images

For scientists, the giant had a role in maintaining pastures and fertilizing soil.

Extinct animals can be brought back in two ways: cloning and genetic engineering. The first method is known for the example of Dolly the sheep, which was cloned in 1997. In this procedure, DNA from one animal is injected into a fertilized egg from another donor animal, and the egg is then implanted into a surrogate mother.

This method has already been tried with the bucardo, or Pyrenean ibex, which was officially declared extinct in 2000. Three years after its disappearance from the face of the earth, its DNA was extracted and cloned from the frozen skin of the animal. A surrogate mother goat gave birth to an ibexthe first time an extinct species has been revived.

Unfortunately, this was also the first case of double extinction, as the chick only lived for seven minutes.

There are many well-preserved remains of mammoths in permafrost from Siberia, but its DNA is usually damaged by prolonged freezing. Scientists have already understood the genome of the mammoth, but have not been able to obtain the complete genetic chain as it existed for the animal.

This is where a second resequencing method can come in handy, the so-called CRISPR gene-editing technique. In it, specific genes that allow mammoths to survive at high latitudes are inserted into the genome of their closest living relative, the Asian elephant.

Then, the modified genome is implanted into a fertilized elephant egg, which is then transplanted into an elephant surrogate mother. From there a hybrid of elephant and mammoth is expected to be born.

Of course, there are bigger difficulties, such as scientists dont know exactly which genes are needed to survive in the Arctic. They know that the animal must be covered with fur, have an oval skull and a thick layer of subcutaneous fat but everything else is still a question.

Credit, Getty Images

giant bone; Colossal Company wants to use giants of these extinct animals as starting points for their projects

Today, about 1 million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction. According to Lamm, if the giant project is successful, it will pave the way for the genetic liberation of various creatures.

The term refers to the process of increasing the genetic diversity of endangered species through cloning or genetic engineering. Lam says the huge project is a trial balloon of sorts.

Even if this giant is not brought back to Earth as well, technologies will be developed that could prevent the species from extinction and can be licensed or sold after all, the company is commercial and not charitable.

So the project to resurrect mammoths can be seen as a kind of incubator for the development of genetic engineering and intellectual property, which may be easier to breed than live woolly mammoths.

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Is it possible to 'revive' mammoths to fight climate change? - Sprout Wired

We lead todays i with a science exclusive likely to change the food we eat in this country: the Government is going to approve genetic engineering in UK farming.

New laws will allow crops and animals to be genetically edited to reduce disease and to increase resistance to extreme weather and pests.

Critics include animal welfare campaigners, who are worried about conditions, and Franken-food activists, concerned by the consequences of genetic fiddling.

Supporters, including many scientists, say gene editing is a simple technique that speeds up conventional selective breeding. They believe it can tackle world hunger.

Gene editing means genes are replaced by others from the same species rather than being injected from a secondspecies, as in genetic modification (GM).

There is a clear difference between the techniques for genetic editing and for GM; between the ethical questions raised; and, very soon, between the laws that will govern them in the UK.

Brexit allows the Government to diverge from Brussels in a major change to farming. Ministers hope to boost research could it transform food production in Britain and beyond? as well as accelerate the arrival of gene-edited food on our plates.

Public confidence will be key, requiring strong regulation and clear labelling. Some people wont care to discover the differences between gene editing and GM, so educating us about changes to our food will be crucial to acceptance.

Brussels is thinking of following Britains lead, the European Commission said yesterday. If gene editing is going to transform food supplies in the developing world, low-income countries will need the huge European market to also welcome their products.

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Gene editing could tackle world hunger, but the public need to have confidence in it - iNews

ByDavid K. Johnson, Ph.D.,Kings CollegeGene manipulation to get designer babies is a step that has huge moral problems. (Image: Pan Andrii/Shutterstock)

The film Gattaca is set in a world in which gene manipulation is common. When parents decide to have children, they often do so with the help of geneticists. Diseases are weeded out, the parents best attributes are selected. One can even design a baby with a specific purpose in mind to be a best swimmer, or to be an astronaut. Children produced this way are called valids.

Some parents, however, chose to reproduce naturally, letting their childs genetic code be random. Society is arranged so these invalids are condemned to menial jobs. Only valids have access to professional employment, and background checks are constantly performed.

This is a transcript from the video series Sci-Phi: Science Fiction as Philosophy. Watch it now, on Wondrium.

The story of Gattaca follows Vincent, an invalid working as a janitor at the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. At birth, his genetic code made him highly likely to be subject to many disorders, and he has an expected lifespan of only 30.2 years. He nevertheless dreams of being an astronaut.

He uses the genetic material of a valid named Jerome to pass himself off as a valid and, through his own efforts, he earns a spot as a navigator on a mission to Saturns moon Titan. The deception is almost exposed; but the background checker ends up looking the other way and the movie ends with Vincent blasting off on his mission to Titan.

The moral of the storythat you should not let the expectations of others determine what you think you can doseems fine. But, given that, in Gattaca, its genetics that are setting the limits, its hard to take the moral seriously. Not that genetic determinismwhich suggests that your genetic makeup determines everything about youis right; but genes do set limits. If Vincent has a congenital heart defect, he is going to die on the way to Titan and no amount of hard work and determination will change that fact.

Learn more about Aldous Huxleys Brave New World.

Still, Gattaca raises serious concerns about the development of genetic engineering technology that would allow for designer babies. One common worry is that creating designer babies are immoral because its unnatural. But such arguments fallaciously rely on what philosopher Daniel Maguire calls the biologism fallacy: the fallacious effort to wring a moral mandate out of raw biological facts.

Something being natural does not make it moral; being unnatural doesnt make it immoral.

One possible objection is that designer babies would be viewed by their parents as commodities, rather than persons, and treat them accordingly. But such worries seem to be overblown.

For instance, that parents of children born of in vitro fertilization dont treat them as property. Indeed, studies have shown that, on average, the quality of parenting in families who use in vitro fertilization is actually superior to those who reproduce naturally. And this makes sense. No family who seeks out in vitro fertilization ends up with an unwanted child.

One legitimate worry is expressed by Marcy Darnovsky from the Center for Genetics and Society in California. If the design is too specific, the childs freedom could be restricted. In Gattaca, Jerome was designed to become the worlds best swimmerand his failure to do so drove him to throw himself in front of a car. But this would not be a reason to ban designer babies. After all, some parents already do thisdemanding that their child become a doctor or play their favorite sport.

Once such practices become common, and thus our evolution as a species become dictated by, what they call, unnatural selection and nonrandom mutation, a new species would arise. But this wouldnt necessarily be a bad thing. If the genetic line of humans just ended, that would be sad. But if it leads to the birth of more intelligent humans who are less violent, more durable, and more capable of living a full lifethat is something to be celebrated.

Learn more about science fiction and the real world.

More worrisome are the short-term effects we see in Gattaca. If the technology was not universally available, you would quickly see society divided into two segmentsthe valids and the invalids, the haves and the have-notswith prime jobs and positions reserved for the valids. Worse still, initially, such technology would only be available to the very rich. This would give their children an even greater advantage in society than they already have, greatly widening the gap between the rich and the poor.

But the thing to consider is this: Would you want to live in the society Gattaca depicts? As the philosopher John Rawls says, one way to determine the fairness of a society is by determining whether you would want to enter it if you did not know which person you would be. And it seems the society depicted in Gattaca doesnt fit the bill. It seems not, because you could just as easily be a valid as an invalid. It certainly is not one that adheres to John Rawls principle of justice.

In Gattaca, some people choose to have children who are born after consulting geneticists. These children, the valids, are genetically selected to be disease free and can be engineered to be best at certain professions.

In Gattaca, people who are born with a natural mix of genes rather than being genetically modified are called invalids. They are condemned to menial jobs. Only valids have access to professional employment, and background checks are constantly performed.

One common worry is that creating designer babies is an immoral act because its unnatural. But such arguments fallaciously rely on what philosopher Daniel Maguire calls the biologism fallacy: the fallacious effort to wring a moral mandate out of raw biological facts. Something being natural does not make it moral; being unnatural doesnt make it immoral.

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"Gattaca" and the Ethics of Genetic Selection - The Great Courses Daily News

This is the tenth post of "The Context"a biweekly series of archival storiesofferingour readers a useful background to some of the most important subjects in the news today. We hope you enjoyit.

What can you do these days with significant private funding and the latest advancements in synthetic biology? Possibly, thousands of years after the species went extinct, bring back the woolly mammoth.

A recent article in STAT highlighted the work of George Church, Winthrop professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. For almost eight years, Church has been leading a team of researchers striving to bring back the woolly mammoth using CRIPSR gene-editing technology. Though the idea received significant news coverage when Church first publicly discussed the possibility in 2013, only recently did Colossal, a Texas-based artificial intelligence company, join with other funders to raise $15 million to support the project and make it a reality.

Church and his colleagues hope to edit the genome of Asian elephants to make them more resistant to cold temperatures and therefore able to push farther into the freezing tundra where mammoths once roamed. There, these cold-adapted elephants could knock down dark, sunlight-absorbing trees that are extending their range into the warming habitat and break up moss, transforming the tundra into light-reflecting grassland that keeps the ground colder, locking in the methane and creating a lot of plant matter to lock up carbon, too. This has the potential to help offset one of the dangerous, self-reinforcing cycles of climate change: a thawing tundra that releases gigantic quantities of greenhouse gases now trapped in the frozen, but rapidly warming, far north.

There are many questions about the practicality of the project. Will the species created present the desired traits? Would countries agree to host these tremendous creatures if Churchs group succeeds? And there are mammoth-sized ethical questions too. Elephants are not just sentient creatures, said David DeGrazia, a philosopher and bioethicist. Theyre really smart, they are really self-aware and emotionally complex. I dont think we should involve them in experiments that are not in their best interest.

At Harvard Magazine, weve written several articles about Churchs work and the implications of synthetic biology. In a recent feature story, managing editor Jon Shaw explored Churchs gene-editing work beyond the flashiest woolly mammoth headlines.

News accounts often report that he wants to revive the woolly mammoth.In fact, Church is undertaking a multi-pronged conservation projectwith synthetic biology at its corethat he hopes will benefit living Asian elephants, humans, the Arctic, and perhaps the planet.

Aside from using gene editing to bring back an extinct species, Church also wants to edit the genome of living Asian elephants to make them resistant to pathogens like the endotheliotropic herpesvirus, which leads to hemorrhagic bleeding. This kind of editing, he believes, could aid in the survival of many threatened speciesand improve immunotherapies for humans.

Shaws report also reveals business models Church has in mind for the genetically engineered mammoth: youve got tourism, meat, hair, and maybe legal ivory, he says. Though this description presents ethical quandaries, Shaw writes that Church is sanguine about the potential of biological engineering to make a better world.

Another feature on Churchs work in synthetic biology from 2014 (before much of the mammoth publicity), also shows the extraordinary life-saving potential and moral pitfalls of the field. The author, Katherine Xue, described its promise this way:

Traditional genetic engineering amounted more or less to biological cut-and-paste: scientists could, for instance, transfer a cold-tolerance gene from an Arctic fish into a tomato. Synthetic biology aims for a more radical reorganization. Its organisms are built to be biological machines, with DNA and proteins standing in for circuit components or lines of computer code. In combination, the biological parts perform functions unknown to nature: processing signals, producing new chemicals, storing information.

The applications Xue presents include remodeling the human genome to detect and destroy all viruses. Its an interesting and provocative analysis of the field.

For more on the topic, Id recommend this article exploring former assistant professor of the history of science Sophia Roosths work on de-extinction. This review of Churchs research on creating a virus-resistant bacterium also provides more fundamental information on gene editing to understand his current projects.

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The Context: Resurrecting the Woolly Mammoth - Harvard Magazine

Ministers are set to give the go-ahead to the use of gene editing in agriculture which could see altered produce on the supermarket shelves in five years time, i can reveal.

The Government is expected to issue its response to its own consultation on the technology at the end of the month that will give the green light to the cautious exploration of genetic engineering in farming.

The move will mark the biggest divergence by the UK away from existing European laws since leaving the EU, which has banned the technique for years amid fears it is unsafe.

Brexit minister Lord Frost announced yesterday the Governments intention to repeal EU laws governing the use of genetic editing in the UK as part of a statement on Brexit opportunities in the coming years.

He told peers that Environment Secretary George Eustice would shortly set out plans to reform the regulation of gene edited organisms.

The lifting of the ban would enable more sustainable and efficient farming and help produce healthier and more nutritious food, he added.

Gene editing involves the technique of replacing genes that govern certain traits, such as water dependency, disease resistance and nutrition with better-functioning ones from the same species.

It has the potential to make crops much more nutritious and resistant to storms or pests and to considerably boost the resilience and yields of livestock, advocates say.

The NFU believes gene-edited produce could be on shop shelves within five years. Outdoor trials have been launched to grow GE wheat that knocks out acrylamide, a carcinogen that occurs when bread is toasted. It is being grown in a controlled environment in Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire.

The technology may also allow farmers to reduce their dependence on antibiotics in dairy cattle, which can be passed on to humans.

A consultation launched by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs back in January came to a close in March, but the governments response is only due at the end of this month.

In an interview with i in March, Defra chief scientific advisor Professor Gideon Henderson said: There is a mindset that we would like to change the law on this that tendency to go ahead is there. And everything I have heard so far from diverse stakeholder groups taking in the breadth of the views suggests that there is pretty general support for it.

The decision to lift the ban on gene-editing, which is different to genetically modifying, has been criticised by animal rights groups on the grounds of animal welfare concerns.

A Defra spokesperson said: Gene editing has the ability to harness the genetic resources that mother nature has provided, such as breeding crops that perform better, benefitting farmers and reducing impacts on the environment.

Now that we have left the EU, we have the opportunity to make coherent policy decisions on gene editing based on current science and evidence. We are committed to proportionate, science-based regulation that protects people, animals and the environment and that begins with this consultation.

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UK set to approve gene-edited livestock and crops in major post-Brexit break with EU policy - iNews

DURHAM, NCThrowing together a bunch of unused polynucleotides that would otherwise have gone to waste, a team of geneticists and biomedical engineers at Duke University told reporters Thursday they had developed a new hybrid creature from various scraps of DNA they had lying around their lab. Over the course of our CRISPR studies, weve accumulated a lot of surplus gene fragments, so we figured, why not just mix everything up and see what happens? said lab chief Andrew Brown as he used a scalpel to scrape some stray fruit fly DNA from a beaker, explaining that genetic material for the new organism had been salvaged from used test tubes, old refrigeration units, and at least a dozen biohazard containers. In a way, its the ultimate test of your genetic engineering skillstaking whatever nucleic acids you happen to have on hand and seeing what you can whip up. Its also fun. We had all this extra mouse, sheep, moth, hermit crab, carpenter ant, and chimpanzee DNA, all of which was still perfectly good and wasnt being used for anything else. So we grabbed a pipette, took a base pair here, a base pair there, threw everything in the thermocycler, and voil! After discovering they had only managed to create a small, unremarkable organism that basically just looked like another kind of beetle, the geneticists reportedly squashed it with a tissue, threw it in the trash, and headed home for the night.

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Geneticists Develop Hybrid Creature From Whatever Scraps Of DNA Lying Around Lab - The Onion

PopSci isspending September relearning how to eat. As intuitive as our love of chowing down is, a lot stands between us and optimal eating. This month, wellbreak down diet myths, unlockdelicious kitchen hacks, and explore ourmost common misconceptionsabout our grub.

The food labels you see in grocery stores are getting a makeover. By January 2022, products that have been bioengineered, or have an ingredient in them thats been bioengineered, will require a disclosure telling consumers about the presence of GMOs, thanks to a mandate from Congress. You might already see this new label make its way onto select foods and brands starting this year.

The new labeling system might make people wonder, as they frequently have in the pastare GMOs safe?

Heres where the latest scientific consensus stands.

Good news: The majority of food safety experts agree that genetically modified organisms, from plants to animals, are generally safe for human consumption.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found in a 2016 review of more than 1,000 studies that GMO crops dont pose a health risk to humans.

In a press lease, the committee announced that it found no substantiated evidence of a difference in risks to human health between current commercially available genetically engineered (GE) crops and conventionally bred crops.

The World Health Organization, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the European Commission reached the same conclusion. The US FDA works closely with the EPA and USDA to evaluate the safety of new GMO crops and ingredients.

The WHO has also partnered with the Food and Agriculture Organization to develop a collection of food standards and best practices that provides a guideline for assessing any potential risks of new genetically modified crops or organisms.

[Related: Avoiding GMO food might be tougher than you think]

The major issues that consumers are worried about are the same ones that experts have been actively investigating for the past two decades, says Richard Goodman, a research professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. These issues include the natural problems with food that would affect human safety, animal safety, allergy, toxicity.

Before an organism with a genetically modified trait can enter the market, researchers test it extensively over a few years. They verify that the DNA insertedmore on just what that is in a momentworks correctly and is stable, meaning that it doesnt jump around within the chromosome of the organism. Then, they evaluate proteins produced by the organism and check to see if they line up with their source genes or match the makeup of known allergens or toxins.

For some products, scientists also run whats known as a rat toxicity test in which a high dose of the protein produced as a result of the genetic insert is fed to a number of rats over a controlled time period to see if there are any impacts on their health. Additionally, researchers also conduct nutritional studies assessing the protein, carbohydrate, and fat levels of the genetically modified product, often in comparison to a similar product produced through conventional breeding.

The FDA formally defined a genetically modified organism as a plant, animal, or microbe that has had its genetic material, or DNA, specifically altered using technology to introduce a new trait. This also includes the transfer of a section of DNA from one organism to another. An example is when a gene from a soil bacterium (Bt) was spliced into corn DNA to create an insect-resistant corn.

Heres how organisms are typically genetically modified. In the standard method, a piece of DNA is inserted into cells, sometimes with a gene gun, and sometimes via a specialized bug called Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Now, researchers are experimenting with using CRISPR/Cas9, a system that uses RNA guides to target and cut out specific parts of the organisms genome. The DNA added in the process is embedded into the chromosome of the food thats being modified. That inserted DNA comes with tools that the organism can use to turn the simple gene code (which is in essence an instruction manual) into RNA, and finally, into a protein.

Researchers check to see that the protein doesnt look too similar to a number of toxic proteins that exist in nature like venoms, or ricin, which comes from unprocessed castor beans. They also check that the new proteins dont contain anything that would trigger an unwanted allergic reaction.

The scientists then closely monitor the modified cells to see how they grow. Eventually, individual transformed plants are selected for testing in the field. Goodman estimates that there are over a hundred different genetic modifications that have been approved by the regulatory bodies in the US in crops like rice, corn, soybeans, sugar beets, canola, and more.

However, there are some plants that are genetically edited that are exempt from USDA regulation. These include edits at levels too low to be detected, or knocking out or slightly tweaking a gene that is originally part of the plants native genome. All crop developers need to apply for exemption with the USDA in those cases.

[Related: GMO Facts: 10 Common GMO Claims Debunked]

Modifying plants is somewhat different from modifying animals. For example, the GM Atlantic salmon uses a growth factor from another species of salmon, says Goodman. It took more than 22 years to get approval for this to be used as food, and they looked at things like what are the proteins made from the different parts of the salmon.

Goodman compares some GM products, like the viral-resistant papaya developed in Hawaii in the 90s, to the biomedical industrys use of gene editing to boost immunity or correct disease-related mutations in humans. That has worked, and its pretty accurate and effective, he says. So there are similar things that people are trying to use on plants that do similar things.

Many experts argue that even though the first modern genetic modification techniques were introduced in the 1970s, it is not really any different than how humans have been traditionally breeding plants and animals. In fact, this method could be seen as a sped up and more precise version of that.

[Related: Theres No Need To Fear Gene-Edited Food]

Everything is genetically modified, says Goodman. Plus, foreign DNA in our body is nothing to fret about, he adds. For example: When you get infected with viruses or your intestines bacterial organisms die and break down, foreign DNA can leach out, and your immune system takes care of that, he says.

Some genetic modifications can make food last longer or taste better, but others can create nutritional benefits. An example of that is golden rice, which was produced by inserting two different plant genes that allowed the rice to make the precursor to vitamin A, beta carotene.

People who eat mostly rice, especially in countries where they dont have much money or dont eat a lot of vegetables, can have vitamin A deficiency, which causes immune defects, [and] problems with vision, says Goodman. If you try to supplement people who have vitamin A deficiency by giving them vitamin A, you could cause toxicity unless you really limit that. Beta carotene, if you eat too much of it, it goes out in your urine. In other words, golden rice is a better solution than stand-alone vitamins.

More significantly, Goodman says that some GMOs have reduced the amount of pesticides and herbicides put on plants. Some of those chemical pesticides end up in ground water and so forth, he adds. So, where are we better off?

Correction September 17, 2021: The article previously misstated that certain foods from plants that are edited are exempt from FDA regulation. It is the USDA that grants certain exemptions for some edited plants.Foods from plants are regulated by the FDA regardless of how they are produced.

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Most experts agree that GMOs are safe to eat - Popular Science