US Company Plans to ‘Resurrect’ Woolly Mammoths Through Cutting-Edge Science

A US biotech company is spearheading efforts to bring woolly mammoths back to life using advanced genetic engineering, aiming to restore extinct species and combat climate change.

Colossal Biosciences, a company based in Texas, is working on de-extincting the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, and dodo bird. The initiative recently secured an additional $200 million in funding for these projects.

The startup, led by AI entrepreneur Ben Lamm, informed Bloomberg that Colossal is on schedule to produce a mammoth calf by 2028.

“We won’t take any action until we perfect the genomes,” Lamm stated in an interview with Bloomberg Technology on Wednesday.

According to Lamm, the company is presently in the “editing phase” of the project, and progress on the Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, is “actually ahead of schedule.”

He added that a team of 17 is working on artificial wombs, with the first expected to be ready within two years.

Colossal boasts a market valuation exceeding $10 billion and has successfully raised a total of $435 million in cash. This includes the latest capital infusion of $200 million from investor TWG Global.

Mark Walter, the CEO of TWG’s investor group, expressed admiration for Colossal’s “remarkable technological innovations and their substantial impact on advancing conservation,” as stated in a press release.

Lamm informed Bloomberg that his project drew inspiration from predictions indicating a 15% reduction in the earth’s biodiversity by 2050. These forecasts have now been revised to predict a 50% loss.

He said, “It’s preferable to possess a de-extinction toolkit and not require it than to find ourselves in need of one without having it.”

Critics have noted that the project bears resemblances to Michael Crichton’s cautionary story “Jurassic Park,” which involved bringing dinosaurs back to life.

In December 2023, Russian billionaire Andrei Melnichenko announced a collaboration with Colossal to create a ‘Pleistocene Park.’ Speaking at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, he characterized this initiative as an innovative approach to decreasing methane emissions from Siberian permafrost by reviving Ice Age animals. He referred to it as a “cost-effective method for combating climate change.” Nevertheless, US sanctions imposed on Russia due to the Ukraine conflict have stalled the project.

Lamm teamed up with Harvard University geneticist George Church to co-found Colossal in 2021. The company counts the CIA-affiliated In-Q-Tel among its supporters.

Scientists think that the woolly mammoths experienced a significant decline in their population approximately 10,000 years ago, coinciding with the end of the last major Ice Age. The final members of this species are believed to have died out roughly 4,000 years ago.

Colossal’s remaining two projects focus on extinctions that occurred more recently. The flightless dodo vanished in the late 1600s after European explorers brought invasive species to its home in Mauritius, while the last known thylacine died at Tasmania’s Hobart Zoo in 1936.