https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/ar-BB1jqP44
A company aiming to bring extinct animals back from the dead said it has taken an elephant-sized step toward genetically resurrecting the woolly mammoth, a wild if contentious goal to repopulate the Arctic tundra with a missing titan.
Colossal Biosciences, a biotechnology company based in Dallas, announced Wednesday it has produced a line of Asian elephant stem cells that can be coaxed to transform into other types of cells needed to reconstruct the extinct giant — or at a least a mammoth-like elephant designed to thrive in the cold.
“It’s probably the most significant thing so far in the project,” said George Church, a Harvard geneticist and Colossal co-founder. “There are many steps in the future.”
For proponents, bringing back vanished animals is a chance to correct humanity’s role in the ongoing extinction crisis. Breakthroughs in their field, they say, may yield benefits for animals still with us, including endangered elephants.