In brief
A team from Colossal Biosciences is making waves in the field of genetic engineering by introducing dire wolf traits into modern gray wolves, aiming to breathe life into a long-extinct species.
For over a decade, the pursuit of de-extinction has captured the attention of scientists and the public alike. The company Colossal Biosciences has taken this vision a step further by successfully breeding gray wolves infused with genes from the extinct dire wolf, a species that roamed North America roughly 13,000 years ago, which has gained fame through popular culture like the television series “Game of Thrones.”In 2021, scientists recovered DNA from dire wolf fossils, paving the way for this groundbreaking project. Using this ancient genetic material, researchers from Colossal edited twenty genes in gray wolves to create embryos with dire wolf characteristics. These embryos were implanted into surrogate dogs, leading to the births of three wolf pups—two males, Romulus and Remus, at six months old, and a female named Khaleesi, just two months old. These new pups display significant features of their ancestors, including larger body sizes and pale, thick coats.Beth Shapiro, the chief scientific officer at Colossal, heralded this achievement as a landmark case of successful de-extinction, emphasizing the creation of “functional copies of something that used to be alive.” Although these wolves remain in a specially designated 2,000-acre facility in an undisclosed location in the northern US, the implications of Colossal's work extend beyond mere novelty. The technology developed could play a crucial role in the conservation of modern endangered species, such as the critically endangered red wolf, which is predominantly found in North Carolina.
