The company wants to bring back to life mammoths that have been extinct for 4,000 years

According to the NGO WWF, With fewer than 52,000 Asian elephants left in the wild, collecting cells from these animals would be difficult and unwise..

“These cells represent a huge asset in the company's anti-extinction efforts,” Ireona Hesoli, study co-author and director of biosciences at Colossal, told Live Science.

George Church, co-author of the study, co-founder of Colossal and a geneticist at Harvard University, highlighted the importance of the achievement. It could pave the way for the creation of a mammal with characteristics of a woolly mammoth, able to survive in cold conditions and perform similar ecological functions in the Arctic..

The process involves identifying genes associated with the mammoth's distinctive traits, such as cold tolerance and shaggy fur, to modify Asian elephant cells, which are 99.6% genetically compatible.

a The next step will involve combining the modified stem cells with an Asian elephant egg and transplanting it into a surrogate mother.Which may lead to the birth of an elephant that resembles a mammoth.

Conservation of threatened species

This advance could also have major implications for the conservation of endangered species, such as allowing the artificial production and fertilization of reproductive cells.