UAF partners with Alaska students for a mammoth of a project

University of Alaska Fairbanks professor and mammoth researcher Dr. Matthew Wooller along with Colossal Biosciences have a collaborative project aimed at providing an educational tool for students as well as cataloging a large collection of mammoth fossils.

“I just think it’s super exciting to try and track down some of the latest surviving mammoths in the state of Alaska,” Wooller said. “There’s really kind of cutting-edge science that has emerged in basically the last year that suggests there may have been mammoths from within the last 10,000 years, which is pretty recent actually.”

Colossal Biosciences,which bills itself as the breakthrough genetic engineering and de-extinction company, has partnered with Wooller and UAF to help establish the Mammoth in the Classroom initiative as part of the Adopt a Mammoth program. Wooller is a director at UAF’s Alaska Stable Isotope Facility as well as a Scientific Advisory Board member for Colossal. and The collaborative project is preparing to radiocarbon date approximately 1,500 mammoth teeth, tusks and bones, in the University of Alaska Museum of the North’s collection. With Colossal’s involvement and funding, the newly launched Mammoth in the Classroom initiative will kick start by donating the initial 55 mammoth fossils so that all school districts within the state of Alaska can be a part of the scientific project.

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