For those who, like me, grew between ’80 and 90s, the news of the de-extinction of the direct-wolf cannot fail to have made one think of a classic of cinematographic science fiction, such as Jurassic Park. In the film I Dinosaurs – actually hybrid reality created using the genetic template of the reptiles of the present day – quickly escape their creators. They learn to reproduce. They escape from cages built to imprison them. And they end up taking revenge on the unfortunate who are in the shot. In short, the message is that nature is by its nature uncontrollable, and it is good to think twice before putting it to play.
The history of the revived enocono (Italian name of the direct-wolf) in many ways is similar: as in the film, in fact, the animals brought back to life by Colossal Biosciences are not the ancient extinct canids, but hybrids created by crossing their DNA with that of a current species (the wolf). As in the cinematographic film, the operation presents unpredictable risks and seems more useful in the media level than as a conservation program of biodiversity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ucuowk_ve
It is therefore difficult not to ask yourself a few questions. The over 400 million dollars collected by Colossal to bring Mammut, Encioni and Dodo back to life – for example – would it not be useful to invest them in some concrete projects for the protection or repopulation of the species currently at risk? After Dodo and Mammut, who will be the next dear extinct to deserve a second possibility? And what will we do if with these technologies, in the future, someone came to mind to draw up the borders of bioethics, and bring back to life, which I know, our cousins Neanderthal (and it is not a fear then so peregrine, since a few years ago it was one of the co -founders of Colossal, the geneticist George Church, to talk about it)?
We discussed it with Marco Musiani, an ordinary zoology of the University of Bologna, who has a first hand knowledge of the topic, given that in the past working in the United States of America has collaborated with some of the scientists who are currently part of the Cololossal Biosciences team.
Professor, let’s start with a must: is it right to say that a say Wolf has been reported to life?
“Then, the one made by researchers from Colossal Biosciences is certainly a very complex molecular biology experiment. What has been created, however, is a completely new organism. I would not call it or say a Wolf, nor a wolf. It is a third thing, which will surely give us a lot of information on this extinct species, even on the behavior of these animals. However it is a being with a genetic architecture absolutely different from that of the saying original. close to that of a current wolf “.
Do we have an idea of how such an animal would behave if we freed it in nature?
“The 20 genes that have been engineered in this organism do not control only morphology. Some have much more pervasive effects, and can interact with each other and with the rest of the genome. In theory, therefore, it is possible that these genes in addition to the appearance of eenocation also determine their behavior. These genes can determine, for example, size, and size in particular also includes some aspects of the morphology of the skull and of the jaw. Mandbola morphology in the canids determines the diet, and therefore the hybrids could have the same as the same prey of the extinct enquences.
There are those who say that these hybrids can never behave like the enopioni, because being extinct there is nobody today who can teach their traditions of hunting for these animals.
“This is actually not entirely true. There is an interaction between gene and environment and environment and genes, so it is difficult to distinguish the two. We think that the behaviors we see in nature are always learned during learning from parents, but in particular in wolves, in the canids, the effect of genetics on behavior, on morphology, on the diet, on the adaptations to the wider ecology has long been underestimated, where it was seen in Yellowstone, for example, In 1995, wolves from the West of Canada were reintroduced, and therefore they had never seen a bison, an animal that instead in the Yellowstone area was among their prey before they were extinct. Conditions “.
Currently the three enoconal puppies created by Colossal Biosciences are kept in a fenced terrain. Do you think there are plans to reinsert them in nature?
“I don’t think, surely nor nor none of the officer. This does not mean, however, that, sooner or later, they cannot happen by mistake. There are many documented cases of captivity animals that for accidents of various paths have managed to escape from fences. Over time, generation after generation, the chances that an accident causes the escape of some specimens becomes more and more consistent. And that they succeed in the intent.
Can you do some examples of these risks?
“Well, in all captivity situations with great fences, the problem is not only that of the possible escape of animals, but also that of the spillover of pathogens, that is, of the transmission of parasites and diseases between captivity animals and wild species. It is a problem that should not be underestimated. And creating a new species, we are recreating a new environment, a new potential guest, even for parasites and for pathologies, evolving into unpredictable directions and then being transmitted to other genetically similar animals in nature, such as dogs, wolves, coyote, foxes, and therefore perhaps reaching the jump of species, first in other mammals and therefore – as the pandemic – even in man taught us “.
Saying Wolf recreated by Colossal were produced by working on 20 gray wolf genes. Do we have any idea how they chose them?
“The vast majority of these genes are simply a reconstruction of the variants that have been found in the ancient DNA of saying Wolf, reconstructed using according to methodologies introduced by the nobel reward Pääbo. There are however exceptions: for example, I am not clear that type of mutation has been inserted to determine the white color of these say Wolf. I seem to understand that the variant used was not found in the DNA was found Ancient to say Wolf, but instead a mutation has been introduced that gives white in other canids “.
Regarding the white white of the new enquences, a marketing maneuver may seem bad, given that they look very much about the famous Albino metalp of Game of Thrones, which has certainly contributed to guaranteeing several covers …
“It is not easy to make hypotheses, also because the color of the hair can be selected for several reasons: for ecological advantages, for example the possibility of camouflaging itself in a snowy environment, but also because sometimes it is connected to other characters, as happened for example to the black hair of the wolves, which we have discovered to have spread because the gene that produces it also increases the resistance of animals to a very common pathology. of enoconio as mascot for the company, and this may have influenced the choice of genes that have been used to create them “.
Colossal de-extinction programs are presented as nature conservation operations. Think is true?
“One of the objectives is to recreate some of the characteristics of these extinct animals, and then try to understand from their behavior what the causes of extinction have been, and therefore understand what happened in the past to avoid making the same mistakes in the future. This is a line of research that can make sense, even if I think there are aspects of animal welfare, that is, of the well -being of these animals that are created, which should be considered more, because it is difficult to imagine that they live that they live that they live In a fence that offers a fraction of the area they would need in nature.
A second aspect is instead to propose these operations as an attempt to reintroduce in nature the biodiversity that existed in the past, and which has been swept away by their extinction. This is a much less sensible reasoning, which could also be transformed into a boomerang, creating in the collective imagination the impression that even if a species extinguishes it is not very important, because we can always recreate it. Here, I think it’s not true. That is, we are not recreating extinct animals, and therefore we are not helping to counterbalance the extinction “.
In short, instead of bringing the extinct species back to life, it would be better to work to protect those still present …
“Exactly, and it is something I agree on all the ecologists, the zoologists and biologists with whom I spoke about it in Italy. The immediate danger of these de-extinction operations is to provide a false hope, presenting a Silver Bull, a magical solution-which in reality does not exist-to the long-standing problem of the conservation of nature, and to the fact that some species are in decline, and that we human beings are negatively influencing their habitat.
In this way, we risk thinking that we can continue to pollute and destroy the environment, because it is always done in time to bring back the species that must be extinct. And moreover, investments are subtracted from the conservation programs of habitats and wild species, which instead need greater financial support. These de-extinction operations cost a lot, and end up creating absolutely new organisms, which have never existed on our planet. It would be better to deal with those we still have, and that are constantly declining. “
There is also one last aspect of these research that deserves to be discussed, and it is the bioethical one. Are there risks in this sense?
“The technologies used are extremely sophisticated, and when a technology is available there is always the risk that someone will decide to use it in an ethically execrable way. To make a parallel, the film on Oppenheimer has recently been released, and it shows well that at the time many scientists were against developing the thermonuclear bomb (bomb H), but then this was made any more fit, By studying the scientific path with which the saying Wolf were recreated we would be able to do the same to recreate a neanderthal man.
As in the case of enocono, it would not really be a neanderthal, nor a homo sapiens, but a third species still different. Obviously it would put the same risks that we have described by talking about the hybrids of enoconio: diseases, the fact that we could not guarantee its well -being. Being in this case an intelligent creature, most of us would deepen, however, research of the genre absolutely executable on the ethical level. It is not said that this prevents someone from trying. But what I ask myself at this point is: if we have all these problems, obvious, as soon as we talk about clone or recreate human beings and species related to us, because we do not strange even when we decide to create a strange wolf that had never been seen on this planet, whose well -being is doubtful, and that can also be risks for wild animals and for the ecosystem of our planet? “.