I’ve been waiting for this. Ever since researchers almost brought a wild goat species back from extinction in 2003, it was only a matter of time until someone came forward and said they had successfully “de-extincted” a species. Now, it has happened.
This week, American biotech company Colossal Biosciences announced it had resurrected the dire wolf, an animal that went extinct at the end of the last ice age. Colossal released a video that invited viewers to “experience the first dire wolf howls heard in over 10,000 years”.
But these are not dire wolf howls, and these are not dire wolves. To make the pups, scientists edited the DNA inside grey wolf cells to make it more dire wolf-like. Twenty changes were made to 14 different genes involved in coat colour, body size and skull shape. Then the cells were used for cloning.
The result is that the vast majority of the animals’ DNA is still that of the grey wolf. I’m not the first to point this out, but this means that what Colossal has actually created is a genetically modified grey wolf.
So, why the insistence on calling it a dire wolf?
Pop “dire wolf” into a search engine, and the evidence of a PR coup is everywhere. Exhibit A: the exclusive access given to media big hitters, such as Time magazine and ABC News. Exhibit B: the wolf howl video, which racked up more than a million views in 24 hours. Exhibits C to I: seven more films, all by Colossal, released to time with its announcement. This includes one – more pop video than documentary – that attempts to explain the complicated science of de-extinction to the soundtrack of Thomas Dolby’s She Blinded Me With Science. Oh, the irony.
If the idea was to generate interest, or hype, the dire wolf announcement worked, but in the midst of it all, there is a conspicuous absence of peer-reviewed, publicly accessible science. Colossal hasn’t released its methods or analysis of results for scientific or public scrutiny. This isn’t science as most researchers do it. This is a carefully orchestrated PR campaign, by a private company valued at more than $10bn.
Dire wolves are cool. Genetically modified wolves, less so. “We’ve slightly changed the DNA of a wolf,” is less newsworthy than, “we’ve made a dire wolf … you know them, they’ve been in Game of Thrones, and World of Warcraft” (George RR Martin – a Colossal investor and adviser – reportedly met the “dire wolves” and was moved to tears). Colossal knows this and uses it to its advantage.
I’ve interviewed researchers from Colossal Biosciences. Their technology is impressive, but there is what they do, and there is how they share this. When it comes to publicity, Colossal is a master of the art.
Only last month, it announced its creation of the mammoth-esque “woolly mouse”. Before that, it has dominated headlines with its plans to de-extinct the thylacine, the dodo and the woolly mammoth. Oh, and did I mention that it has the financial and PR backing of Chris Hemsworth, Peter Jackson, and Tiger Woods? I didn’t, but it has.
It is a showboating, clickbaiting approach to science that prioritises media attention over accessible data. If regular science is the quiet kid, calmly eating their dinner, then Colossal Bioscience is the fidgety kid, who wants to show you how many peas he can fit in his mouth.
This is science by press release, and it’s a problem. Fragments of data are scattered among glossy PR products, which makes it almost impossible for the rest of the scientific community to interrogate the quality of Colossal’s work.
So what’s the point of making a dire wolf that isn’t really a dire wolf? Colossal says it is because the wolves can improve the diversity and health of their ecosystems. This much would be true, yet the three individuals, Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, will spend the rest of their lives in their 800-hectare (2,000- acre) reserve. Any plans to release future not-dire wolves into the wild are unclear.
A second reason, Colossal says, is because the project is helping to save endangered species. Alongside its “dire wolf” pups, Colossal also announced the birth of four cloned red wolves.
Red wolves are a critically endangered species, native to the US. Fewer than 20 wild animals remain, all descended from 14 founder individuals. By carefully choosing the cells that they used for cloning, Colossal has effectively produced three new founders. If the animals are allowed to breed when they are older, this could improve the genetic diversity and resilience of the red wolf population.
This is a potentially valuable contribution to conservation science, but it’s a shame that this is being drowned out by the noise created by the dubious dire wolves.
In the meantime, the child is being applauded for shovelling peas into their face. Colossal is playing a PR blinder, with the column inches it generates a reward for its hype. “Meh” projects are being spun in a way that is unlikely to be good for the public perception of science. How many people, I wonder, will view these headlines and think that de-extinction is happening right now? To make informed decisions, people need to be able to discern reality from hyperbole.
Colossal says that technology it developed for the dire wolf project helped it to complete the actually important red wolf project. Only, did it really need to make a big, white, muscly, genetically modified wolf in order to make copies of the red wolf? I think not. But I do think it knew how much publicity it would generate.
