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Woolly

Page 21

by Ben Mezrich


  Many wild populations of animals and plants are profoundly threatened by exotic diseases—chytrid fungus in frogs, sylvatic plague in black-footed ferrets, Rapid Ohi’a Death in the keystone ohi’a trees of Hawaii, avian malaria in the forest birds of Hawaii. Can disease resistance be engineered into the genomes of those species? It has been done successfully for the legendary American chestnut tree, once driven to functional extinction by the blight that killed 4 billion trees in the early twentieth century. Scientists at SUNY in New York made the trees blight-proof by introducing a fungus-resistant gene from wheat, and the improved tree is now going through the approval process with government regulators. A different approach could work for avian malaria in Hawaii. There the exotic disease is carried by an alien invasive vector, the Culex quinquefasciatus mosquito, which also transmits a human disease, West Nile virus. Several existing genetic techniques could be used to eliminate the mosquitoes from the islands, thereby protecting all the birds (and humans) at once.

  The term that covers all of these projects (and more to come) is “genetic rescue.” In normal times, wild populations would evolve around such problems, but humans are introducing so many challenges so rapidly that evolution doesn’t have time to generate the needed adaptations. Conservation biologists call what we are doing “facilitated adaptation.” It consists of careful genomic analysis, then minimal gene tweaking, followed by sustained monitoring at every level from ecosystem to individual gene. The goal is to restore ecological biodiversity via precisely enhanced genomic biodiversity.

  At Revive & Restore, we find that people come for the Mammoths, but they stay for the ferrets and frogs and trees and birds that need help right now. You’ll find more information at our website: reviverestore.org. You are welcome to bring your skills or your resources to the projects you find there.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, I am indebted to George Church, Chao-Ting Wu, and their daughter, Marie, for generously lending me their time and stories; Woolly, for me, was a true labor of love, the sort of story I’ve been looking for all my life. I have enormous respect for Dr. Church and his family, and everything he is doing to make our world a better place. Also enormous thanks to Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan, true icons, as well as Sergey and Nikita Zimov, who are out there in the tundra, boots in the snow, fighting the good fight every day, for all of us. I am also indebted to the Revival Team—Luhan Yang, Bobby Dhadwar, Justin Quinn, and Margo Monroe—without whom Woolly would not have been possible.

  I am also indebted to Oscar Sharp; I am privileged to be connected to such a phenomenon at this early stage of what will no doubt be a spectacular career. Also great thanks to Marty Bowen, John Fischer, Daria Cercek, Jono Chanin, and the teams at Fox and Temple Hill who are going to make one hell of a movie out of this story.

  I am immensely grateful to Leslie Meredith and Peter Borland, fantastic editors, Daniella Wexler, David Brown, and all the people at Atria/Simon & Schuster who have helped bring Woolly to light. I am also indebted to Eric Simonoff and Matthew Snyder, agents extraordinaire. And, as always, I’m thankful to my parents, my brothers, and their families. And to Tonya, Asher, Arya, and Bugsy—all ready and waiting for Woolly to one day soon, once again stroll the Siberian plains.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BEN MEZRICH graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. He has published nineteen books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Accidental Billionaires, which was adapted into the Academy Award–winning film The Social Network, and Bringing Down the House, which has sold more than 1.5 million copies in twelve languages and was the basis for the hit movie 21, and most recently, The 37th Parallel. He has also published Once Upon a Time in Russia, Ugly Americans, Rigged, and Busting Vegas, as well as Bringing Down the Mouse, a book for young readers. He lives in Boston.

  MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT

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  ALSO BY BEN MEZRICH

  The 37th Parallel

  Once Upon a Time in Russia

  Bringing Down the House

  Ugly Americans

  Busting Vega$

  Rigged

  The Accidental Billionaires

  Sex on the Moon

  Straight Flush

  The X-Files: Skin

  Fertile Ground

  Threshold

  Reaper

  Seven Wonders

  Complete Your Collection of Ben Mezrich's bestelling books

  The 37th Parallel

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  Once Upon a Time in Russia

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  Bringing Down the House

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  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Abbasi, Jennifer. “Pioneering Geneticist Explains Ambitious Plan to ‘Write’ the Human Genome.” November 2016. JAMA.

  Abbot, Alison. “The quiet revolutionary: How the co-discovery of CRISPR explosively changed Emmanuelle Charpentier’s life.” April 2016. Nature.

  Austen, Ben. “Stewart Brand: The Last Prankster.” March 2013. Men’s Journal.

  Baer, Jake. “This Korean Lab has nearly perfected dog cloning, and that’s just the start.” September 12, 2015. Business Insider.

  BEC Crew. “150 Scientists just met in secret to discuss creating a synthetic human genome.” May 16, 2016. Sciencealert.com.

  Bretkelly, Jody. “Old Bunkhouse now welcomes both human guests, birds.” February 5, 2015. Sfgate.com.

  Brown, Katrina. “Mammoth Jurassic Park may be under development in Northern Alberta.” March 27, 2014. Imgism.com.

  Church, George. Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. April 2014. Hachette Book Group.

  Cyranoski, David. “Cloning Comeback.” January 14, 2014. Nature.

  Dean, Josh. “For 100,000, You Can Clone Your Dog.” October, 22, 2014. Bloomberg.com.

  Dutchen, Stephanie. “No Escape.” January 21, 2015. HMS (Harvard Medical School) News.

  “Elephants Learn from Others.” Elephantvoices.org.

  Grant, Bob. “Credit for CRISPR: A Conversation with George Church.” December 29, 2015. The Scientist.

  Hall, Yancey. “Coming Soon: Your personal DNA map.” March 7, 2006. National Geographic.

  Harmon, Amy. “Fighting Lyme Disease in the Genes of Nantucket’s Mice.” June 7, 2016. New York Times.

  Hays, Brooks. “Woolly Mammoth DNA successfully spliced into elephant genome.” March 25, 2015. UPI.com, Science News.

  Honeyborne, James. “Elephants Really Do Grieve Like Us.” January 30, 2013. DailyMail.com.

  Kalb, Claudia. “A New Threat in the Lab.” June 9, 2005. Newsweek.

  Kazutoshi Takahashi, Koji Tanabe, Mari Ohnuki, Megumi Narita, Tomoko Ichisaka, Kiichiro Tomoda, Shinya Yamanaka. “Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Adult Human Fibroblasts by Defined Factors.” November 30, 2017. http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0092867407014717/1-s2.0-S0092867407014717-main.pdf?_tid=492ac6ac-2e8e-11e7-adc3-00000aacb360&acdnat=1493657610_316226a04082e8a7db2290a1252e6bf4.

  Klinghoffer, David. “An Apology for Harvard’s George Church (of Neanderthal baby fame?).” January 23, 2013. EvolutionNews.org.

  Larmer, Brook. “Of Mammoths and Men.” April 2013. NationalGeographic.com.

  Lewis, Danny. “Last Woolly Mammoths Died Isolated and Alone.” May 8, 2015. Smithsonian Magazine.

  Lewis, Tanya. “Woolly M
ammoth DNA Inserted into Elephant Cells.” March 26, 2015. Livescience.com.

  Miller, Peter. “George Church, the Future Without Limit.” June 2014. National Geographic.

  Mullin, Emily. “Obama advisors urge action against Crispr Bioterror threat.” November 17, 2016. MIT Technology Review.

  Nickerson, Colin. “A quest to create life out of synthetics.” April 2, 2008. Boston Globe.

  Pollack, Andrew. “Jennifer Doudna, a Pioneer Who Helped Simplify Genome Editing.” May 11, 2015. New York Times.

  Pollack, Andrew. “Custom-made Microbes, at Your Service.” January 17, 2006. New York Times.

  Saletan, William. “The Healer.” October 2012. Slate.com.

  Scudellari, Megan. “How IPS cells changed the world.” June 15, 2016. Nature.

  Seligman, Katherine. “The Social Entrepreneur: Ryan Phelan’s controversial new venture . . .” January 8, 2006. Sfgate.com.

  Service, Robert F. “Synthetic Microbe Lives with Fewer than 500 Genes.” March 24, 2016. Science, Sciencemag.org.

  Shapiro, Beth. How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction. April 2015. Princeton University Press.

  Siberian Times. “South Koreans kick off efforts to clone extinct Siberian cave lions.” March 4, 2016.

  Singer, Emily. “The Personal Genome Project.” January 20, 2006. MIT Technology Review.

  Stanganelli, Joe. “Interference; a CRISPR Patent Dispute Roadmap.” January 9, 2017. Bio-itworld.com.

  Stein, Rob. “Disgraced Scientist Clones Dogs, and Critics Question His Intent.” September 30, 2015. All Things Considered, NPR.

  Switek, Brian. “How to Resurrect Lost Species.” March 11, 2013. National Geographic.

  Tahir, Tariq. “Preserved Woolly Mammoth with Flowing Blood Found for First Time, Russian Scientists Claim.” May 29, 2013. Metro.com.

  Wade, Nicholas. “Regenerating a Mammoth for 10 Million.” November 19, 2008. New York Times.

  Wade, Nicholas. “2 New Methods to Sequence DNA Promise Vastly Lower Costs.” August 9, 2005. New York Times.

  Wilmut, Ian. “Produce Woolly Mammoth Stem Cells, Says Creator of Dolly the Sheep.” August 1, 2013. Scientific American.

  Wolf, Adam. “The Big Thaw.” September 2008. Stanford Alumni magazine.

  “South Korean geneticists to try to clone extinct Siberian lions.” March 6, 2016. RT.Com.

  “The Alta Summit, December 1984.” Human Genome Project Information Archive.

  INDEX

  A note about the index: The pages referenced in this index refer to the page numbers in the print edition. Clicking on a page number will take you to the ebook location that corresponds to the beginning of that page in the print edition. For a comprehensive list of locations of any word or phrase, use your reading system’s search function.

  A

  aging, 62, 245

  body sizes and, 259–60

  Church and, 19, 209, 259–60

  Dhadwar’s research on, 136–39, 141–42, 198–99, 243

  Yang’s research on, 193–95, 198–99

  Alta Ski Resort, 45–50, 52–55, 108

  Church’s skiing at, 46–50, 54–55

  DOE conference at, 52–55, 74

  Arctic, Arctic Circle, 10, 33, 100, 105, 114, 242, 253–54

  climate change and, 111–12

  cloning Mammoths and, 191

  discoveries of Mammoth carcasses in, 53, 76–78, 109, 218–19

  environment in, 30–32

  Kotelny Island and, 81–83

  Mammoths living in, 3, 76–77

  Minh’s excavation project in, 179, 182, 185

  Arctic Ocean, 3, 10, 81, 85, 249–50

  atomic bombs, 50, 52–53

  B

  Back to the Future, 137

  bacteria, 69, 74–75, 78–79, 128, 146–47, 152, 165, 168, 193, 232, 237–38, 244, 266

  band-tailed pigeons, 94

  bats, 258

  Bezos, Jeff, 91

  biology, 21, 33, 51, 92, 107–8, 118, 138, 145, 189, 192, 200, 210, 213, 243–45, 272

  Church and, 18–19, 46–48, 59, 67, 73, 75, 221–22, 230, 257, 260–61

  Quinn and, 13, 146, 168

  synthetic, 75, 79, 150–51, 168, 257

  Biology Olympics, 126–27

  bison, 31, 83, 118

  Pleistocene Park and, 114–15

  resettled near Chersky, 12–13

  black-footed ferrets, 271–72

  Boston, Mass., 50, 94, 136–37, 157–58, 231, 238, 241

  acquiring elephant stem cells and, 167–68

  Church’s lab in, 17–21, 54, 71–72, 80, 96, 130, 134, 137

  Quinn and, 9–10

  Yang’s trip to British Columbia from, 187–88

  Brand, Stewart, 87–95, 203–4

  background of, 89–91, 93

  Church’s relationship with, 94–95

  climate change and, 113–14

  conservation and, 91–93, 95, 108, 269, 271–72

  elephant herd visited by, 206–11

  and herpes in elephants, 211

  Long Now Foundation of, 91

  “Mammoth Plus” by, 269–72

  passenger pigeons and, 92–93, 95, 270

  physical appearance of, 88, 203

  Pleistocene Park and, 116

  resurrecting Mammoths and, 129, 269–70

  scientific conference of, 108–16

  summer home of, 88–89, 92

  TEDx Talk and, 149

  Whole Earth Catalogue of, 89–91

  Brazil, 235

  British Columbia, 187–92, 197–98

  C

  Cambridge City Hall, 60–61, 68

  Canada, 189, 220, 270

  Dhadwar in crossing U.S. border with, 133–42

  cats, 221–25

  Cell, 200

  cells, 150–54, 216, 222, 230

  acquiring elephant tissue and, 159, 162

  in aging, 138, 198–99

  body sizes and, 259

  Church and, 20–21, 47–48, 69, 74–75

  curing elephant herpes and, 223

  of discovered Mammoth carcasses, 78–79, 185, 219

  genome sequencing and, 51, 53

  Hayflick limit of, 174, 242

  hemoglobin and, 20, 77, 241–43

  immortalizing of, 199–202, 205, 212, 223, 240, 242

  and implanting Mammoth genetic material into elephant cells, 110, 150–51, 153–54, 162–63, 172–75, 190–91, 223–24, 226, 240, 242–43, 246–48

  Mammoth team and, 145, 148, 150–51

  and rareness of cancer in elephants, 209–10

  synthesizing human, 244–45

  transplantation medicine and, 124

  see also stem cells

  Center for Elephant Conservation, 205–11, 223, 242

  Charles River, 57–58

  Charlie (Church’s childhood friend), 24–25, 27, 36

  Chersky, 97

  animals resettled near, 11–13, 15–16

  environment and, 12–15, 111

  Quinn and, 9–16

  road between Irkutsk and, 29–33

  Zimov’s childhood and, 98

  Zimov’s trip to Wrangel Island from, 250, 252

  chestnut trees, 271–72

  Church, Gaylord, 23–24, 36–37, 39

  Church, George M., 1, 52–69, 71–80, 87–96, 107–16, 177, 203–12, 221–27, 230–34, 236–48

  acquiring elephant tissue and, 156

  and aftereffects of Hiroshima bombing, 52

  birth name of, 23

  birth of, 26

  on body sizes, 258–60

  Brand-Phelan conference and, 108–15

  Brand’s relationship with, 94–95

  childhood and adolescence of, 23–27, 35–44, 46, 95

  climate change and, 111, 113–14

  cloning Mammoths and, 191

  cloning Pyrenean ibex and, 109

  computers as interest of, 46–48

  creating synthetic life forms and, 237–39, 244

  CRISPR
and, 151, 153, 231, 264–65

  daughter of, 72–73, 80, 87, 95, 108

  demeanor of, 58–61, 73, 77, 79, 139

  Dhadwar’s first meeting and interview with, 137, 139–40

  Dhadwar’s relationship with, 134, 141–42

  and Dhadwar’s research on aging, 138–39

  diets of, 60, 204

  DNA and, 17–19, 47, 50, 55, 59, 94, 109–10, 139, 221, 230, 261–66

  dyslexia of, 26, 37

  education of, 25–27, 35–36, 40, 46–50, 52, 58–60, 73, 76, 79, 126

  elephant herd visited by, 204–9, 211, 223

  epilogue of, 257–67

  ethics and, 95, 156, 223–24, 226–27, 236

  finances and, 39, 50, 54, 195, 240

  fireworks experiments of, 24–25, 27, 38

  on flying pigs and Mammoths, 257–58

  genetically enhanced mosquitoes and, 129, 132, 234

  genome sequencing and, 50, 52–54, 61–62, 74–75, 77, 79, 94, 109

  on GMOs, 260–61, 267

  half-sister of, 26–27

  hemoglobin and, 20, 241–43, 262–63

  and herpes in elephants, 211–12, 223–24

  and implanting Mammoth genetic material into elephant cells, 172, 190–91, 223–24, 226, 240, 242–43, 246–48

  journalists’ interviews with, 71–74, 76–77, 79–80, 88, 92, 148, 156–57

  lab of, 17–21, 50, 54, 62, 65, 67, 71–74, 76, 79–80, 94, 96, 109–10, 115, 121, 125–32, 134, 137–41, 151, 153, 156–57, 174, 188–89, 191, 194, 204, 222–23, 226, 230, 232, 237–39, 241–43, 246–47, 253

  lab technician career of, 49–50

  Lyme disease prevention and, 233–34, 236–37

  Mammoth team and, 131–32, 148–49, 190–91, 212, 223–24, 226, 242–43, 246–48, 269

 

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