Find out more
Colossal Biosciences
The de-extinction company
Colossal Biosciences seeks to reawaken the past, to bring back extinct species, to expand endangered populations through genetic rescue, to support biodiversity. In a world pushed to the brink, Colossal is optimizing conservation, exogenous development, bioinformatics, modern genetics, cellular engineering, paleogenetics, biodiversity, genomics, embryology, stem cell reprogramming, computational biology, artificial intelligence, bioethics, and de-extinction. Restoring the Earth for a better future.
Colossal Biosciences is a biotechnology and genetic engineering company working to de-extinct the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, and the dodo. In 2023, it stated that it wants to have woolly mammoth hybrid calves by 2028, and wants to reintroduce them to the Arctic tundra habitat. Likewise, it plans to launch a thylacine research project to release Tasmanian tiger joeys back to their original Tasmanian and broader Australian habitat after a period of observation in captivity. The company develops genetic engineering and reproductive technology for conservation biology. It was founded in 2021 by George Church and Ben Lamm.
In a 2008 interview with The New York Times, George Church first expressed his interest in engineering a hybrid Asian elephant-mammoth by sequencing the woolly mammoth genome. In 2012, Church was part of a team that pioneered the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool, through which the potential for altering genetic code to engineer the envisioned “mammophant” surfaced.Church presented a talk at the National Geographic Society in 2013, where he mapped out the idea of Colossal.
Church and his genetics team used CRISPR to copy mammoth genes into the genome of an Asian elephant in 2015. That same year, Church’s lab integrated mammoth genes into the DNA of elephant skin cells; the lab zeroed in on 60 genes that experiments hypothesized as being important to the distinctive traits of mammoths, such as a high-domed skull, ability to hold oxygen at low temperatures, and fatty tissue. Church’s lab reported in 2017 that it had successfully added 45 genes to the genome of an Asian elephant.
In 2019, Ben Lamm, a serial entrepreneur, contacted Church to meet at his lab in Boston. Lamm was intrigued by press reports of Church’s de-extinction idea.
Colossal was officially launched in 2021, with the company’s mission was to preserve endangered animals through gene-editing technology and use those same animals to reshape Arctic ecosystems to combat climate change.
Because the woolly mammoth and Asian elephant share 99.6% of the same DNA, Colossal aims to develop a proxy species by swapping enough key mammoth genes into the Asian elephant genome. Key mammoth genealogical traits include: a 10cm layer of insulating fat, five different types of shaggy hair, and smaller ears to help the hybrid tolerate cold weather.
Colossal’s lab will pair CRISPR/Cas9 with other DNA-editing enzymes, such as integrases, recombinases, and deaminases, to splice woolly mammoth genes into the Asian elephant. The company plans on sequencing both elephant and mammoth samples in order to identify key genes in both species to promote population diversification. By doing so, Colossal hopes to prevent any rogue mutations within the hybrid herd.
The company plans to use African and Asian elephants as potential surrogates and largely plans to develop artificial elephant wombs lined with uterine tissue as a parallel path to gestation.Colossal scientists plan on creating these embryos by taking skin cells from Asian elephants and reprogramming them into induced pluripotent stem cells which carry mammoth DNA. Lamm stated that Colossal will use both induced pluripotent stem cells as well as somatic cell nuclear transfer in the process.
In 2022, VGP and Colossal announced that they successfully sequenced the entire Asian elephant genome; this is the first time that mammalian genetic code has been fully sequenced to this degree since the Human Genome Project was completed in the early 2000s.
They also launched a thylacine research project, in hopes of “de-extincting” the Tasmanian tiger. It plans to reintroduce the thylacine proxy to selected areas in Tasmania and broader Australia and claims that, by doing so, this will re-balance ecosystems that have suffered biodiversity loss and degradation since the species disappeared. A successful thylacine proxy birth could also introduce new marsupial-assisted reproductive technology which can aid in other marsupial conservation efforts.
In 2023, Colossal announced the formation of its Avian Genomics Group, which will be dedicated to reconstructing the DNA of the dodo bird. Led by Beth Shapiro, this research group aims to create a hybrid composed of specific traits most commonly associated with the dodo and plans to reintroduce these hybrids into their respective environments. Colossal will be working with primordial germ cells to pair dodo DNA with the genome of the Nicobar pigeon, the extinct dodo’s closest living relative. Also in 2023, the company announced that it had successfully generated the first high-quality reference genome of an African elephant.
In 2022, Colossal was listed as one of the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers and was named Genomics Innovation of the Year by the BioTech Breakthrough Awards.