{"id":1422,"date":"2025-04-10T14:16:04","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T21:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-shafferlab\/?p=1422"},"modified":"2025-06-21T14:16:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T21:16:27","slug":"bradley-shaffer-for-gizmodo-has-the-dire-wolf-truly-been-resurrected-we-asked-the-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-shafferlab\/bradley-shaffer-for-gizmodo-has-the-dire-wolf-truly-been-resurrected-we-asked-the-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"Bradley Shaffer for Gizmodo\u2014Has the dire wolf truly been resurrected? We asked the experts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Has the dire wolf truly been resurrected? UCLA professor and evolutionary biologist Bradley Shaffer discussed the recent scientific breakthrough for Gizmodo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The company Colossal Biosciences claims it has achieved the world\u2019s first \u201cfunctional de-extinction,\u201d using ancient DNA to edit gray wolf cells and create three pups with traits of the long-extinct species. But experts \u2014 including Shaffer \u2014 aren\u2019t howling just yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it the dire wolf? Probably not,\u201d said Shaffer, director of the La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science at UCLA. \u201cDoes it have some of their features? Yeah. And my guess is that\u2019s as much as they hoped to accomplish \u2014 and they\u2019ve probably accomplished their goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Colossal\u2019s animals may look the part, with pale coats and imposing builds, they share only 20 gene edits with the real species. That\u2019s a tiny fraction of the millions of differences separating dire wolves from their modern relatives. Still, Shaffer called the work \u2018a big accomplishment\u2019 in gene editing \u2014 one that may have far-reaching repercussions for the future of conservation and even human biomedical research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Has the dire wolf truly been resurrected? UCLA professor and evolutionary biologist Bradley Shaffer discussed the recent scientific breakthrough for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":207,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-labnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-shafferlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-shafferlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-shafferlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-shafferlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-shafferlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1422"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-shafferlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1424,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-shafferlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422\/revisions\/1424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-shafferlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-shafferlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.lifesci.ucla.edu\/eeb-shafferlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}