A picture of a snow-white wolf is splashed across the front page of TIME magazine – but is it really an extinct species back from the dead?
The creature is a genetically modified wolf made by Colossal Biosciences, a company valued at US$10 billion.
The SMC asked experts to comment.
Professor Philip Seddon, Department of Zoology, University of Otago, comments:
“Dire Wolf de-extinction is not what it seems.
“Colossal Biosciences, the U$10B company behind efforts to resurrect the woolly mammoth, the Thylacine, and the dodo, have just announced what they describe as de-extinction of the dire wolf, a species that went extinct some 10,000 years ago. They are claiming this as the world’s first de-extinction, but while no doubt it has required some amazing technological breakthroughs, the cute pups Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi are not dire wolfs – they are genetically modified grey wolves.
“Wolves and dire wolves, despite the wolf part of their names, are not closely related, having parted ways from a common ancestor some 6 million years ago, and the African jackal might be more closely related to dire wolves. Dire wolves are in their own genus, so a very different species. What Colossal has done is to introduce a small number of changes to the genetic material of a grey wolf to produce grey wolf pups with dire wolf features such as pale coats and potentially slightly larger size. So, hybrid grey wolves, or a GMO wolf. The pups will spend their days in a large enclosure being hand fed and closely monitored.
“Certainly, this involves advances in genetic technology, and these might have applications for the conservation of existing species – but the return of dire wolves? No. In the same way that Colossal’s plans for woolly mammoths and dodos will involve the genetic modification of related species. We have GMO wolves and might one day have GMO Asian elephants, but for now extinction really is forever.”
Conflict of interest statement: Phil is a Professor of Zoology at the University of Otago. He has published on the bioethics and ecology of de-extinction and was the chair of an IUCN (World Conservation Union) Working Group that devised guiding principles on de-extinction for conservation.
Associate Professor Nic Rawlence, Director – Otago Palaeogenetics Laboratory, Department of Zoology, University of Otago, comments:
“To truly de-extinct something, you would have to clone it. The problem is we can’t clone extinct animals because the DNA is not well enough preserved. Even if you sequence the genome, you can’t extract DNA from extinct animals in long enough chunks like you could with a living animal. So the only way to “de-extinct” an animal is to use the new synthetic biology technology like CRISPR-cas9 where it acts like molecular scissors, and you can go and chop out a little bit of DNA and insert a new piece of DNA that effectively results in a genetic change.
“So what Colossal Biosciences have produced is a gray wolf with dire wolf-like characteristics – this is not a de-extincted dire wolf, rather it’s a “hybrid”. And importantly, it’s what they think are the important dire wolf like characteristics. Dire wolves diverged from gray wolves anywhere between 2.5 to 6 million years ago. It’s in a completely different genus to gray wolves. Colossal compared the genomes of the dire wolf and the gray wolf, and from about 19,000 genes, they determined that 20 changes in 14 genes gave them a dire wolf.
“Another question – how’s it going to learn to be a dire wolf? Currently, it’s a wolf running around in a paddock. And does the ecosystem it once lived in still exist? It’s the classic thing out of the first Jurassic Park movie, where the Triceratops get very sick because it was eating plants that hadn’t actually evolved when it was around tens of millions of years ago. Can you also bring back enough animals for the population to not be genetically inbred…this is around 500 individuals, for the population not to suffer the consequences on inbreeding (think the Habsburgs).
“In terms of indigenous perspectives on the dire wolf – Colossal have named their indigenous partners and thanked them. But given it’s something this significant, it would have been really nice to actually hear from their indigenous partners. What is their viewpoint and what do they think about it? Are they really on board with this? Especially given my experiences of engaging with tangata whenua in Aotearoa New Zealand, where our iwi, hapu, rūnaga and trust partners are all dead set against de-extinction as it’s against tikanga.
“In the New Zealand context, de-extinction is still science fiction. That’s because of the very deep evolutionary history of our birds, they are tens of millions of years divergent from anything else. Birds are also infinitely more difficult to de-extinct than mammals – the genetically mutated gray wolves were put in domestic dog surrogates. What would you put a giant moa in to bring it to term?
“But we need to be having these conversations and there needs to be community engagement. We need to have discussions around indigenous intellectual property, bio-prospecting, biopiracy, and what happens if animals are brought back from the dead and they are trademarked by these de-extinction companies?”
“Personally, develop de-extinction technology but use it to conserve what we have left. Don’t bring back species from extinction.”
Conflicts of interest statement: No conflicts of interest.
Professor Tammy Steeves, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, comments:
“Colossal–a 10-billion dollar biotechnology company that seeks to combine “the science of genetics with the business of discovery”–has announced the world’s first successfully de-extincted animal, the dire wolf.
“Many have been quick to argue that 20 gene edits of a grey wolf genome does not a dire wolf make.
“Others have been quick to argue that the “is it a dire wolf or is it a genetically modified grey wolf?” debate is a distraction from Colossal’s end goal: to use the de-extinction technologies developed to resurrect species, like the dire wolf, to save living species from the brink of extinction, like the red wolf.
“Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, we are more likely to debate the use of de-extinction technologies to save endangered birds. We can draw fodder from Colossal’s plans to restore lost genetic diversity in the pink pigeon alongside plans to de-extinct the dodo. Both species are endemic to Mauritius.
“Beyond the ethical, legal, political, and economic issues raised by using de-extinction technologies in conservation, the scientific challenges are immense.
“For example, to de-extinct the dire wolf, the team at Colossal focused exclusively on morphological traits controlled by a few genes of large effect. In other words, they targeted “big impact” genes, none of which are related to improving traits associated with reproduction and survival.
“Recovering small, inbred populations would require targeting multiple traits associated with reproduction and survival, most of which are likely to be controlled by many genes, each of small effect. Such “small impact” genes are notoriously hard to find, especially in endangered species.
“Even if the genes associated with reproduction and survival could be found and could be edited in a relatively large number of individuals, without rapid population growth, the risk of losing these gene edits in subsequent generations would be high.
“In short, if it sounds too good to be true, it likely is.”
Conflict of interest statement: “Tammy Steeves is a Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury Professor based in the School of Biological Sciences. Her research focuses on the ecological and evolutionary processes that contribute to the formation and maintenance of species boundaries, and the application of this knowledge to enhance the recovery of species at risk. Her interdisciplinary team is world-renowned for integrating genomic and non-genomic data to develop culturally responsive conservation genetic management strategies for some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s rarest species.”
Associate Professor Michael Knapp, Department of Anatomy, University of Otago, comments:
“Bringing back extinct animals, or “de-extinction” is a controversial, but unquestionably fascinating topic. It raises a plethora of questions ranging from ethics to technology. It is easy to brush attempts to bring back extinct species off as vanity projects without purpose in the real world, but that would ignore the technological breakthroughs behind these efforts.
“Colossal are correct in claiming that the technology developed by them is suitable to contribute to conservation of threatened species. Possibilities include editing harmful mutations out of the populations of threatened species and introducing traits that may help rare species adapt to environmental change.
“On the other hand, the technology still has its limitations. Genes that may be introduced to give a species more fur, might have other and unwanted functions as well. Also, often not only the species, but the ecosystems they used to live in are extinct. This is for example the case for mammoths, which used to live in a “mammoth steppe” environment, a vegetation type that has fallen victim to prehistoric climate change and no longer exists anywhere on the planet. So, where do we put these “homeless” de-extinct animals?
“Furthermore, the opinions of indigenous communities on these developments would be of great interest and appear to be under-represented in the media coverage I have seen so far.
“One thing that is likely to irk geneticists is Colossal’s claim that they have brought back the dire wolf. Colossal has edited 14 gray wolf genes to produce gray wolves with dire wolf-like traits such as larger size, longer thicker fur etc. Dire wolves and gray wolves differ in more than 20 positions across their genomes. Thus these new dire wolves are genetically almost certainly closer to gray wolves than to ancient dire wolves, but they look more like dire wolves than gray wolves. These are not the dire wolves that went extinct more than 10,000 years ago, as the press release may suggest.
“Besides this simplification, and ignoring all justified ethical concerns raised, it is undeniable that the birth of these wolves is a major breakthrough in genetics. Whether or not this is an avenue that should be further pursued is a highly complex question.”
Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts of interest.