Scientists Genetically Engineer Wooly Mice

Genetically engineered woolly mice could one day help populate the Arctic with hairy, genetically modified elephants and help stop the planet warming. 

Those are the startling claims being made by a US company that said on Tuesday they had created mice with "mammoth-like traits". Colossal Biosciences' eventual goal is to engineer mammoth-like creatures that could help stop arctic permafrost from melting. 

Criticism has flooded in, including that engineering mammoth-like creatures is a big stretch from making mice hairier, as well as being unethical, and that the whole project is a publicity stunt. 

But the company says they have been misjudged and that the mouse is an important tool on the path to restoring Earth's depleted nature.

Colossal Biosciences say that the experiments with hairy mice was a step towards genetically modifying elephants to be hairy and better able to withstand the cold. Their stated goal is to create herds of what it calls mammoth-like creatures to live in the arctic tundra. 

The company say the creatures' grazing habits would encourage grasslands to flourish and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being released from melting permafrost. [Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas which is one of the main drivers of global warming].

The co-founder and CEO, Ben Lam, told BBC News that the woolly mice marked a big step forward. 

"We are on track to have the first cold adapted elephant by 2028 and that would mean having the first embryos by the end of 2026", he announced. "Over time we are going to have this entire lineage of cold adapted elephants that we can put back into the wild that can interbreed".

Their chief science officer, Prof Beth Shapiro (left) added that Colossal Biosciences have other research programmes running in parallel, such as studying embryo development and creating artificial wombs for the genetically modified elephants to grow in, and which the company say will ensure that they achieve their target of creating cold adapted elephants in a few years. 

Prof Shapiro insists that the firm's plan to reintroduce extinct species, such as the Dodo and Tasmanian Tiger, as well as the mammoth, will fill ecological niches that have been lost, and so restore biodiversity and benefit the environment. 

The genetic tools they are developing in the meantime are already helping species at risk of extinction, she continued. These include developing a vaccine for elephants against a deadly virus; the creation of genetically modified marsupials in Australia known as quoll (Family: Dasyuridae, Class: Mammalia) to be resistant to neurotoxins produced by the cane toad (Scientific name: Rhinella marina); and reintroducing genetic diversity in the pink pigeon (Scientific name: Nesoenas mayeri) in Mauritius.