section_path: Overview
section_name: Overview
paragraph_text: Overview
  
  In theory, preserved genetic material found in remains of woolly mammoths could be used to recreate living mammoths, due to advances in molecular biology techniques and the cloning of mammals, begun with Dolly the Sheep in 1996. Cloning of mammals has improved in the last two decades. To date, no viable mammoth tissue or its intact genome has been found to attempt cloning.
  
  According to Beth Shapiro, a scientist who has taken a central role in the sequencing of the mammoth genome, states in her 2015 book How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction, that a mammoth will never be cloned, at least not one that is pure mammoth. Nevertheless, the book concludes that we are likely, at some point, to see something that resembles a mammoth. Comparative genomics shows that the mammoth genome matches 99% of the elephant genome, so researchers working in the field aim to engineer an elephant with mammoth genes, that code for the external appearance and traits of a mammoth. The outcome would be an elephant-mammoth hybrid with no more than 1% mammoth genes. Separate projects are working on gradually adding mammoth genes to elephant cells in vitro.
  
  Colossal Biosciences, founded in 2021 by George M. Church and Ben Lamm, is a biotechnology company that has publicly stated that its project is to genetically resurrect the woolly mammoth, combining its genes with Asian elephant DNA. It has publicly stated that it intends to complete the project by 2028.