Ben Lamm isn’t a fan of people comparing him to the fictional CEO who brings dinosaurs back to life in Jurassic Park, but it’s an occupational hazard. As the founder of Colossal Biosciences, Lamm is leading groundbreaking research in the field of “de-extinction” – AKA bringing once-extinct animals back to life. His company describes animals like the dodo and Tasmanian tiger (which were wiped from the face of the Earth in the 1600s and early 1900s, respectively) as “lost but not gone forever”.
Colossal also claims that it can produce a living woolly mammoth as early as 2028, which would mean bringing back a creature that went extinct some 4,000 years ago (the exact reasons are still up for debate). This prediction has helped the company raise hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, and earlier this week it took a significant step toward its goal, creating “woolly mice” by editing their genes to bring out their more mammoth-like traits.
All of this might sound like pure sci-fi fantasy. However, Lamm has several reasons to distance himself from Spielberg’s dinosaur drama. For one, he points out that dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago, while the last woolly mammoths roamed the tundra at the same time humans were building the pyramids – having lived alongside them once before, it’s not so hard to imagine sharing Earth with these creatures once again. Then, there’s the nitty-gritty of the actual science.
“Think of us as doing, like, reverse Jurassic Park,” Ben says. That is, the fictional industrialist John Hammond finds dinosaur DNA via prehistoric mosquitoes preserved in amber, and fills in the gaps to populate his prehistoric wildlife park. Colossal, on the other hand, collects ancient DNA directly from well-preserved mammoths in Alaska and Siberia, then assembles it as fully as possible using a computer. Then, they compare the woolly mammoth’s genome to that of its closest living relatives, like the Indian elephant, to figure out the unique genes that made it particularly well-suited to cold temperatures (the ones responsible for its shaggy hair, curved tusks, and fat deposits, for example).
In other words, the scientists are searching for the things that “really made a mammoth a mammoth”. Once these unique genes are identified, the plan is to edit them into Asian elephant cells using genetic engineering tools like CRISPR. The resulting cell will then be fused with an elephant egg cell, and implanted into a surrogate – an Asian or African elephant. “If all goes well, at the end of that pregnancy, you have a baby mammoth,” Ben explains.
There are a number of other issues surrounding the process of de-extinction, of course, not least the ethical concerns. But first, how did Ben Lamm – a 43-year-old American tech entrepreneur – even land on his mission to “reawaken the lost wilds of Earth”? “I’ve always been fascinated with technology. I love science fiction, and the art of the possible,” he explains. “And I love working with much smarter women and men than me.” As such, Colossal was born out of a conversation with George Church, a top Harvard scientist and leading figure in the field of synthetic biology.
“George told me his vision for bringing back extinct species and us[ing] those technologies to help conservation of existing species, and it was just really inspiring,” Lamm says. “I felt like this was my moment to build something that was truly going to change the world.” Other world-leading experts have since come on board, despite their initial scepticism, from Nobel-winning scientists to hands-on adventurers working in the field.
We play God every day – Ben Lamm
It’s no secret that the natural world is in need of change. The WWF says wildlife populations have dropped by an average of 69 per cent in the last 50 years. According to the bleakest estimates, up to 150 species continue to go extinct every day. And by 2050, around a quarter of all species living today could be extinct. But of course, de-extinction is much slower than the many innovative ways we’ve found to wipe animals and plants off the face of Earth – from anthropogenic climate change, to hunting and habitat destruction. So is bringing back a woolly mammoth or a Tasmanian tiger even going to make a dent?
Lamm compares Colossal’s approach to the Moon landings of the 1960s, and humanity’s ongoing quest to spread among the stars. When you try to solve such a big problem, he says: “You have to innovate and invent across a lot of different topics.” As a side-effect, you create a lot of useful technologies with applications across all areas of life. Space travel advanced fields of science and engineering that brought us wireless headphones, camera phones, water purification, better solar energy, better prosthetic limbs, and a whole host of other medical technologies. Colossal hopes to do the same for Earth’s wildlife today, via computational biology, embryology (the development of a fetus) and genetic engineering. Already, the company has developed a vaccine that aims to cure a highly lethal elephant virus – but this side of conservation doesn’t tend to make significant headlines.
So, Lamm says, while de-extinction technologies may help usher in a future of wild beasts beyond our imagination, they can also help “undo the sins of the past” and safeguard the species of today. “We, as a species, eradicated these incredible animals. [Colossal is] trying to undo what early mankind did, and bring them back.”
We, as a species, eradicated these incredible animals. [Colossal is] trying to undo what early mankind did, and bring them back – Ben Lamm
Given our previous record, it’s understandable that many sceptics still question Colossal’s ‘meddling’ with nature. Who’s to say that the company’s work won’t have unforeseen side effects, like the scientific innovations of the past – from the whale blubber trade, to the Industrial Revolution? And should humans really get to “play god” with animal genetics, regardless of the outcome?
“I think we play God every day,” he says in response to these questions. “We play God every time we take medication that prevents us from dying. We play God when we eradicate a species like the thylacine or the dodo. We play God when we cut down the rainforest or overfish the oceans.” He doesn’t see this changing in the near future, either, especially as human technologies grow more powerful. The question is: how can we take our ‘Godlike’ power and use it to live a life more integrated with nature, rather than separated from it? “I think that’s our duty and responsibility,” he adds, “and we have a moral obligation to take care of this planet and [its] species.”
In terms of changing people’s perspective on de-extinction, woolly mammoths are a pretty good poster child. As a large herbivore, their reintroduction would have a meaningful ecological impact – and Colossal is taking many steps to make sure the rewilding process goes smoothly, including regular conversations with local experts and populations around the world. However, they’re also an “iconic” and “universally loved” species popularised by films like Ice Age and Sesame Street. A sceptic might even suggest that they’ve been chosen specifically for their “charisma”, as a way to popularise Colossal’s mission (see also: the undeniably adorable woolly mouse).
It is awesome to have a world where [you can see] a species that no one else has seen in 4,000 years – Ben Lamm
As Lamm points out, however, this doesn’t have to be separated from the deep scientific research and serious conservation efforts of Colossal’s core mission. You can believe in the material benefits of bringing back a mammoth, and the scientific by-products, and admit that a world with woolly mammoths is simply more exciting than a world without them. “It is awesome to have a world where [you can see] a species that no one else has seen in 4,000 years,” he says. “Outside of the benefits to science, the inspiration, or saving elephants and the ecosystem, it’s just cool.”
Colossal Biosciences has raised almost half a billion dollars to date, so obviously Lamm isn’t the only person that thinks mammoths are cool enough to engage some of the world’s greatest minds in bringing them back to life. Even with all that brainpower behind it, though, is its proposed date of 2028 for the first modern mammoth birth – just seven years from the founding of the company – really realistic? “I feel very confident,” he says. “And fortune favours the bold.”
