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