Scientists Clone 13,000-year-old Wolf Species
by Will DeFour, age 15
Thousands of years ago, dire wolves were the apex predators of North America. With white fur and a large, muscular build, they could take down the behemoths of the Ice Age. They went extinct long ago, but scientists at Colossal Biosciences are using gene editing technology to recreate something not seen in over 13,000 years, a species they call “dire wolves.”
Colossal was founded in Dallas in 2021, with grand plans to “de-extinct” the Tasmanian tiger, dodo bird, and legendary woolly mammoth. Colossal uses a gene editing technology called CRISPR to make this possible. Their co-founder and head of genetics, George Church, developed the first genomic sequencing technique and helped innovate stem cell engineering and genome editing. He is now a professor at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Colossal employs over 130 scientists and is valued at $10.2 billion. This value is mainly due to their first great scientific leap, the de-extinction of the dire wolf. [Read More]