Dire wolves and the age of miracles
- Matt Ridley
- a few seconds ago
- 7 min read
Good morning, you’re reading the Rational Optimist Diary. For the first time ever, scientists have brought back an extinct species – a dire wolf – using gene editing (well, sort of).
Today Matt Ridley, who’s been writing about the potential for “de-extinction” for over 10 years, interprets this breakthrough for us. Not only is it a demonstration of how powerful gene editing has become… it foreshadows the spectacular contributions this technology will soon make to human happiness and longevity.
-Dan Steinhart
In today’s Diary:
Did they really de-extinct a dire wolf?
Refuting the glass half empty takes on de-extinction
Curing blind and deaf children
The end of inherited diseases
Stephen McBride: The age of biotech miracles has already begun
De-extinction and the future of gene editing
By Matt Ridley
Ten years ago, I invited a bunch of clever biologists to my home to discuss the possibility of one day reversing the extinction of a bird called the great auk. We did not claim it could yet be done, but we knew that the two de-extinction technologies—ancient genome sequencing and CRISPR gene editing—were progressing fast, and we thought it useful to debate the issue in advance.
It was a fascinating meeting not least because Professor Tom Gilbert arrived from Copenhagen with news that he had just completed the reading of a complete great auk genome, a feat we thought was still some way off. We ended the meeting with a trip out to the Farne Islands, in the North Sea, where we watched a breeding colony of razorbills, the great auk’s closest living relative, and the species whose genome could perhaps one day be “edited” back to that of a great auk.
This month, the American genetics company Colossal Biosciences announced the de-extinction of the dire wolf, a species of large, white wolf that went extinct some thousands of years ago. There was an annoying degree of hype in the announcement, in my view, since they had not created real dire wolves, but ordinary grey wolves with a handful of genes altered to their dire wolve equivalents. But we’ll leave that debate on one side.
The real significance of the news is what it shows: It will almost certainly be possible to truly reverse the extinction of some species within the next decade or two.
The usual glass-half-empty suspects say this is a bad idea. They say there is no place for these species; they went extinct for a reason and the ecosystem, trashed by mankind, can no longer support them. They say that de-extinction will waste resources better spent on saving rare species that still survive. Or worse, that it will lead humans to argue that extinction does not matter because it can be reversed. They say de-extinguished individuals will lead sad lives in zoos.
While we must proceed with caution, I think all these arguments will prove to be wrong. Take the great auk. It went extinct around 1844, when the last one was killed on an island off Iceland, as recounted in my friend Tim Birkhead’s fine new book The Great Auk. It is the only species of bird breeding in Europe to have gone extinct in 500 years, incidentally—contrary to the general impression environmentalists like to give that extinctions are happening all the time.
Great auks did not go extinct because the North Atlantic was no longer a suitable place for them to thrive, but because we humans slaughtered them in large numbers to stuff their feathers into pillows. If you brought them back today that need not happen—there is little economic demand for feathers, and the bird could be legally protected anyway.
Would it fit back into the ocean ecosystem? Yes. Some seabird colonies in the North Atlantic are doing poorly, but many are doing well. The Farne Islands, on whose advisory committee I sit, and where great auks lived until the 1700s, now have more auks breeding on them than at any point in my lifetime—and probably more than they’ve had for several centuries: 40,000 pairs of puffins, 30,000 pairs of guillemots, 400 pairs of razorbills. Great auks would find plenty to eat in the North Atlantic and might prove to be a useful part of the ecological jigsaw if it turns out, say, that they specialise in eating a species of fish that eats other fish.
Likewise, reintroducing mammoths to parts of Siberia might have a big impact on the ecosystem if they promote productive natural grasslands at the expense of the low-productivity spruce taiga that expanded after the mammoth’s extinction. Passenger pigeons were a keynote species in North American woodlands, as were dodos on Mauritius and thylacines in Australia. Getting them back would be an ecological restoration project, not just a vanity project.
As for wasting resources, Colossal Biosciences and Revive & Restore, its non-profit equivalent (to which I am an advisor), will support all sorts of other conservation efforts with the money they raise. It is highly unlikely that the dedicated conservationists who are trying to save the last 100 great Indian bustards from extinction (driven there by wind farms, solar farms, and their associated power lines, by the way) will suddenly say, “Let’s not bother because we can always de-extinguish the species later”.
This month’s semi-dire wolves will be followed by some semi-passenger pigeons soon, I understand, and maybe a semi-mammoth after that. For me the real excitement of de-extinction is the demonstration of just how powerful gene editing has become. The agricultural and medical applications of the technology are mind boggling and far more important for human flourishing.
In the decade since the CRISPR tool was invented for precisely cutting a genome at specific spots, and then altering it during the repair, we have seen it used for improving the yield, nutritional quality, and disease resistance of many crops. That will further accelerate the reduction in the amount of land needed to feed human beings. Already, despite the growing global population, we have passed “peak land” and can set aside more and more land for wildlife as well as golf courses.
As for the medical opportunities, it is now in principle possible to cure almost any genetic, inherited disease, though it will be some time before we can be sure of doing so safely in every case. It is more and more possible to design and insert highly specific drugs to kill cancers, and vaccines to kill viruses. Compared with many other technical advances, including AI, I think gene editing will prove to be even more spectacularly beneficial for humankind in the long run.
Welcome to the age of miracles
By Stephen McBride
A blind man regains his vision. A deaf child hears her mother's voice for the first time. An infant is cured of a life-threatening disease before he’s even born.
For all of human history these personal miracles sounded like divine intervention. Now they’re reality.
CRISPR - aka gene editing - is a tool for fixing typos in your body's instructions. Although it was invented over a decade ago, CRISPR is finally coming of age and allowing us to edit the code of life:
Giving sight to the blind.
An Irish man had gone blind. Doctors injected a working copy of a faulty gene into his eye, prompting his own cells to start making the enzyme needed for sight. He can now see.
In London, four toddlers born with a severe form of childhood blindness gained "life-changing improvements" through similar gene therapy. Before, they could see only light and dark. Now they can track objects and pick up toys. They’ve even started to draw.
Giving hearing to the deaf.
A small number of kids are born deaf because they lack a certain gene. These children’s bodies cannot make a protein crucial for transmitting sound signals from the ear to the brain.
A new drug from Regeneron restores hearing by injecting a working copy of the missing gene via a single jab. In a recent trial, 10 out of 11 kids showed significant hearing improvements. One 10-month-old is now developing speech, enjoying music, and playing pretend.
Pretty incredible. One injection can now fix DNA and change a life forever.
Healing babies before they’re born.
This is possibly the wildest CRISPR breakthrough: We now have the power to eliminate diseases before a child takes their first breath. A two-and-a-half-year-old girl is living free of a brutal genetic disorder that leaves infants unable to crawl, walk, or even breathe – because her mother took a gene-modifying drug during pregnancy.
Thoughts:
Biology has always been something that happens to us. If you were born with a genetic disease, that was your destiny. If your family carried a deadly genetic mutation, you lived with that sword hanging over your head. That era is ending. Your body is becoming programmable.
The cost of sequencing a human genome has fallen from $3 billion in 2003 to under $1,000 today. A million-fold improvement. Gene editing costs are following a similar cost curve. When prices fall, usage explodes – as we know from observing this relationship in everything from computer chips to solar panels to space launches. CRISPR is going from “exclusive” to “everyday.”
Is the biotech revolution bigger than the internet? The web revolutionized information. CRISPR promises to transform life. The ability to edit the code of life is severely underrated. Cancer, Alzheimer’s and heart disease are thieves that steal our loved ones. CRISPR hands us tools to fight back.
Who doesn’t want a shot at a 25-forever health span, so you can hike mountains at 80?
Rational Optimists – help us champion the scientists, fund the startups, and spread these stories. Gene editing can rewrite destinies. The universe handed us the code. Now we’re the programmers.
Let’s build a future where no one’s fate is determined by a typo in their DNA.
