Colossal Biosciences and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Partner to Preserve the Genetics of More Than 2,300 Endangered Species

A new public-private partnership will collect, sequence, and store the genetic material of America's most vulnerable species in Colossal's BioVault network, available to researchers worldwide at no cost.

BY Colossal Biosciences

Federal conservation funding has not kept pace. The Colossal Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Colossal Biosciences, has partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to collect, sequence, and preserve the genetic material of more than 2,300 threatened and endangered plant and animal species, including cryopreserved DNA, tissues, and reproductive cells alongside digitized reference genomes. The genetic material will be housed in Colossal’s distributed BioVault network.

Backed by $100 million in donations since its late 2024 incorporation, the Colossal Foundation is leading the effort. All genomic data will be published through open-access repositories at no cost to researchers and conservationists worldwide. Colossal CEO Ben Lamm likened the initiative to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault; future generations, he said, should inherit not just records of the natural world but the tools to protect and restore it.

This story is based on original reporting by Matthew Phelan for Gizmodo. Read the full feature on Gizmodo → https://gizmodo.com/america-is-creating-a-dna-noahs-ark-for-more-than-2300-endangered-species-2000777344