De-Extinction Roadmap: Colossal Bioscience's Progress on the Woolly Mammoth

The idea of seeing a Woolly Mammoth walk the earth again has moved from the pages of science fiction into serious laboratory research. Colossal Biosciences, a biotechnology company co-founded by geneticist George Church and entrepreneur Ben Lamm, has set an aggressive deadline to achieve this. They aim to have their first mammoth-hybrid calves born by 2027 or 2028. Recent scientific milestones suggest this timeline remains plausible.

The Mammoth in the Room: The Recent Stem Cell Breakthrough

For years, the biggest hurdle in de-extinction was not just finding ancient DNA, but creating the right biological building blocks to use it. In a major update to their roadmap, Colossal Biosciences announced a massive breakthrough in March 2024. Their team successfully derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from Asian elephants.

This is a critical development for several specific reasons:

  • Cell Flexibility: iPSCs act like a blank slate. They can be programmed to become any type of cell in the body. This allows scientists to grow elephant hair, skin, or blood in a dish to test their genetic edits before creating an embryo.
  • The TP53 Problem: Elephants have complex genetics designed to fight cancer, specifically a gene pathway involving TP53. This feature historically made their cells resist being reprogrammed into stem cells. Colossal’s team found a way to suppress this pathway temporarily to create stable stem cells.
  • Testing Ground: Without these cells, scientists would have to rely on trial and error with live embryos, which is ethically fraught and incredibly slow. The iPSCs allow for thousands of rapid tests in the lab.

How They Are Building a "Mammoth"

It is important to understand that Colossal is not cloning a mammoth from frozen cells. DNA degrades over thousands of years, meaning a perfect clone is impossible. Instead, they are using CRISPR gene-editing technology to edit the genome of the Asian elephant.

The Asian elephant shares 99.6% of its DNA with the Woolly Mammoth. The roadmap involves inserting specific mammoth traits into the elephant genome to create a cold-resistant hybrid.

Key Genetic Edits

The scientists are targeting roughly 50 to 60 specific genes that define what makes a mammoth a mammoth. These edits focus on survival in the Arctic tundra:

  1. Subcutaneous Fat: Increasing the layer of fat under the skin to provide insulation against freezing temperatures.
  2. Thick Shaggy Coats: Altering hair growth cycles to produce the iconic long fur.
  3. Small Ears: Asian elephants have large ears to dissipate heat. The mammoth needs small ears to prevent frostbite and retain body heat.
  4. Hemoglobin Adaptation: Editing blood cells to ensure oxygen can still be delivered efficiently to tissues at extremely low temperatures.

The Timeline and The 22-Month Wait

The target date of 2027 represents the birth of the first calf, but the biological clock of an elephant makes this a tight schedule. The gestation period for an elephant is approximately 22 months, the longest of any land mammal.

To hit a 2027 or 2028 birth date, a viable embryo must be implanted into a surrogate relatively soon. Colossal operates with two parallel tracks for gestation:

  • Surrogacy: Using living Asian elephants as surrogate mothers. This is the primary method for the initial phase. The size of the calf must be carefully monitored to ensure it does not endanger the smaller Asian elephant mother.
  • Artificial Wombs: The company is also researching ex-vivo (outside the body) gestation. While this technology is in its infancy, it could eventually scale the population without putting pressure on endangered Asian elephants.

Why Bring Them Back? The Ecological Argument

Critics often ask why money is being spent on de-extinction rather than conservation. Colossal argues that the two are linked. The return of the mammoth is not just for tourism or curiosity; it is a tool for “ecosystem engineering.”

The focus is on the “Mammoth Steppe,” a once-vibrant ecosystem in the Arctic. Currently, the Arctic tundra is mossy and forested. In the past, mammoths trampled trees and disturbed the soil, which encouraged the growth of grasslands.

Restoring this grassland ecosystem could have measurable climate benefits:

  • Albedo Effect: Grasslands reflect more sunlight than dark forests, keeping the ground cooler.
  • Permafrost Protection: A thick layer of snow insulates the ground, trapping heat and melting permafrost. Mammoths would trample the snow, reducing its insulating power and allowing the extreme winter cold to penetrate deep into the ground. This keeps the permafrost frozen and locks in dangerous greenhouse gases like methane.

Beyond the Mammoth

While the Woolly Mammoth is the flagship project, the roadmap extends to other species. The technologies developed for the mammoth are being applied elsewhere.

  • The Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger): Colossal is working with labs in Melbourne to bring back this marsupial carnivore. The timeline for the Thylacine might actually be shorter than the mammoth because marsupial gestation is only a few weeks.
  • The Dodo: A project announced in 2023 involves bringing back the famous flightless bird using the Nicobar pigeon as the genetic template.

Conclusion

The roadmap to 2027 is ambitious. It relies on biology cooperating with technology at every turn. However, with the successful creation of elephant stem cells, the theoretical door has been unlocked. The team at Colossal Biosciences has moved from asking “if” this can be done to refining exactly “how” it will happen.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the animal going to be 100% Mammoth? No. It will be a functional mammoth, scientifically described as a cold-resistant Asian elephant with mammoth traits. It will look and behave like a mammoth, but its core DNA is Asian elephant.

Where will the mammoths live? The long-term goal is to release them into the Arctic region. Pleistocene Park, a scientific reserve in northern Siberia, is often cited as a potential testing ground for rewilding these animals to study their impact on the soil.

Will this hurt the Asian elephant surrogates? Colossal claims they are prioritizing animal welfare. The embryos are being engineered to be slightly smaller than a typical Asian elephant calf to ensure the birth is safe for the mother.

How much does this cost? Colossal Biosciences has raised over $225 million in funding from investors including Thomas Tull, Paris Hilton, and the CIA-backed venture firm In-Q-Tel. The project requires massive capital for high-level genetic engineering.