During the Pleistocene Epoch, the Dire wolf population was spread throughout the continents, roaming both South America and North America. Over 10,000 years later, on April 8th, a company called Colossal Biosciences claimed to have brought the species back to life using genetic editing.
The new dire wolf isn’t an exact replica of the ones that roamed the Earth centuries ago. In reality, they are gray wolves that have been genetically modified to have dire wolf traits. The first step taken by the scientists at Colossal Biosciences to bring the dire wolves back was to collect DNA from various dire wolf fossils. Then, they compared their DNA to that of gray wolves. They found that there were about 20 important genes that were notably different. From there, they used gene editing technology to manipulate those 20 genes from the gray wolves to match the dire wolves’ traits, turning it into an embryo similar to the dire wolves. Those embryos were inserted into surrogate dogs, resulting in the birth of Remus and Romulus, and later their sister Khaleesi.
Although this discovery is a major achievement in science, there are many questions and concerns about the impact it will have on the world. Kali Deberry, a freshman at La Jolla High, said that the process, “is really neat, and I would want to meet some dinosaurs like in Jurassic Park.” Many believe that it is a bad idea. Junior Xander Paul commented that “it could backfire and negatively impact the ecosystem.”