The dire wolves “genetically resurrected” by the U.S.-based company Colossal have impressed many with their beauty but have also scandalized others. Among the latter are commentators criticizing the media hype, and naturalists worried that a few partially “de-extinct” animals may attract more attention than the long list of species currently at risk of extinction due to climate change and other human actions. It doesn’t help that the dire wolves’ comeback has no foundation in published scientific data—no peer-reviewed articles, no preprints yet, only two extensive reportages and some YouTube videos. There is certainly room for controversy. However, if we only listen to the critical voices, we risk losing sight of some key facts.

First: Colossal’s scientists are more than skilled (co-founder George Church needs no introduction, and chief science officer Beth Shapiro is no novice in the field of paleoDNA and evolutionary biology). Second: the birth of the dire-wolfized pups (the correct scientific name of dire wolves is Aenocyon dirus, by the way) marks a real technological advance. The ability to introduce dozens of edits across multiple genes at once could prove invaluable for a range of future applications, from restoring lost genetic diversity in endangered species to developing advanced therapies for complex, multigenic diseases.

Third: “technocapitalists” may not enjoy great sympathy in the Trump era, but the millions raised by Colossal have not been diverted from more urgent research priorities. Even if they wanted to invest elsewhere, tycoons drawn to prehistoric creatures would hardly choose, for example, reforestation of the planet.

Certainly, it is striking that so much funding can be found for metalwolves while many areas of research, including genetics, remain underfunded. There are even cases where gene therapies for rare diseases, despite successful clinical trials, have been abandoned because they were deemed not profitable enough. This, however, is not the fault of Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi, nor of Church, who is also a pioneer in other biomedical fields, such as xenotransplantation.

A final remark concerns the controversy over the use of the word “de-extinction” to describe a genetic recovery that is only partial. If it is understood as the effort to reintroduce extinct genetic traits (to the extent that it is desirable and technically possible with current technologies), then it is not a semantic deception but rather a neologism pointing toward the ultimate goal. Just as we talk about artificial intelligence (is ChatGPT truly “intelligent”?) or personalized medicine (personalized, but only to an extent, since much of the genome’s function remains unknown, and each of us is more than the sum of our genes).

(This column was originally published in Italian in 7 – Corriere della Sera magazine.)