Photo credit: Colossal Biosciences
Colossal Biosciences, a startup working on bringing back animals that disappeared long ago, just announced they’ve “de-extincted” the dire wolf, a big, tough wolf that roamed North America over 12,500 years ago. It went extinct when the world changed and its food ran out. You might know dire wolves from Game of Thrones—they’re the cool, giant wolves in the show.
Researchers dug up ancient dire wolf DNA from fossils—a tooth and a skull, both over 12,500 years old. That DNA was fragmented, like a puzzle with missing pieces, but good enough to read some key parts. They sequenced it (basically, turned it into a digital blueprint) and compared it to the gray wolf’s genome. By figuring out what was different, they found 14 genes that seemed to decide dire wolf features—like their bigger size, white fur, and chunkier shape.
- 3 BUILDABLE MEDIEVAL CREATURE TOYS – The LEGO Creator 3 in 1 Medieval Dragon figure lets boys and girls ages 9 years old and older build and rebuild...
- ENDLESS PLAY OPTIONS – Kids can role-play medieval stories with 3 different mythical creature toys (models cannot be built simultaneously): a toy...
- POSABLE – All 3 highly detailed medieval toy building options have posable body parts so kids can enjoy imaginative play as they place them into...
Using a tool called CRISPR, they made 20 specific edits to those 14 genes inside gray wolf cells. Think of it like editing a computer program: they took out some parts of the gray wolf DNA and put in dire wolf parts instead. For instance, they might’ve adjusted a gene that helps bones grow to make the wolves larger or fiddled with one for fur color to turn it white. These changes weren’t just guesses—they came from old dire wolf DNA and lots of studies on how wolf genes work.
After editing, they took those modified cells and used a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT)—the same trick used to clone Dolly the sheep back in the ‘90s. They scooped out the nucleus (the DNA HQ) from a dog egg cell, popped in the edited gray wolf nucleus, and gave it a little zap to kickstart development. Then, they implanted these embryos into surrogate dogs—likely chosen because dogs and wolves are close enough genetically for this to work. After a normal pregnancy, out popped Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi.
I could not be more proud of the team. This massive milestone is the first of many coming examples demonstrating that our end-to-end de-extinction technology stack works. Our team took DNA from a 13,000 year old tooth and a 72,000 year old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies. It was once said, ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Today, our team gets to unveil some of the magic they are working on and its broader impact on conservation,” said Ben Lamm, CEO of Colossal.
