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The dingo is a human-introduced species that never made it to Tasmania. Across Tasmania, the thylacine was the apex predator.

As for mainland Australia, while the dingo is present as an apex predator, the thylacine was around for far longer than the dingo. The dingo arrived in Australia just around 4,000 years ago while the thylacine’s lineage dates back to 160 million years ago. The thylacine was the land’s native species bred over millions of years of evolution to fulfill its unique ecological role there.

In addition, the dingo and thylacine occupied different ecological niches. The thylacine had a greater bite force and was likely a smaller game hunter than the dingo. 

Given its ancient, irreplaceable ecological function, the thylacine is an exemplary candidate for de-extinction, and it is our responsibility to bring it back.

The de-extinction of the thylacine, which has been spearheaded by Andrew Pask of the University of Melbourne for the last two decades, requires 10 distinct steps.

The genomes of the thylacine and one of its closest living Dasyurid relatives need to be sequenced, after which marsupial cell lines must be established before beginning to gene edit the hundreds of thylacine loci into a host genome. Thereafter, we must generate the thylacine embryo, implant it into a surrogate dunnart mother for gestation (8-42 days), and transfer it to an external artificial pouch for maturation. 

As firm believers in radical transparency, we will publicly share all significant progress through this process.

Our embryology and animal husbandry team of experts will use in-vitro fertilization to implant our thylacine embryo into a dunnart for the very initial stages of gestation. 

Marsupials however, including the dunnart, give birth to an immature young, about the size of a grain of rice. To continue to gestate, they need to travel to the mothers’ pouch and latch onto a nipple. We are therefore working to develop an ex-utero pouch to transfer the embryo to for the remainder of the maturation period of the thylacine. 

We encourage you to read through the details of this fascinating process here.

We first plan to reintroduce the thylacine to the southeast Australian island of Tasmania, after which we will reintroduce it to mainland Australia. 

We will strategically select locations for the reintroduction of the thylacine that will not interfere with the lives of local Aboriginal communities. These locations will also ensure the presence of sufficient mesopredators to hunt. 

Our goal is to ensure that the thylacine takes up its functional role as a unique carnivorous marsupial apex predator within its native ecosystem.

The thylacine is an extinct marsupial, commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or the Tasmanian wolf, that was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea.

As a carnivorous apex predator, it was a keystone species in the Australian ecosystem with a critical role in regulating its ecosystem by controlling prey species populations, minimizing the effects of invasive species, and removing weak or sick animals.

The last known live animal was captured in 1930 in Tasmania and went extinct in a zoo in 1936.

More information on the thylacine and its history can be found here.

Our first concern is population growth. The last woolly mammoths went extinct in Russia’s Wrangel island as a result of isolation which led to inbreeding and a loss of genetic diversity. Our primary concern is a sufficient degree of genetic diversity within the first herds of woolly mammoths to ensure a strong, sustainably fertile, and healthy population. To this end, Colossal is analyzing 53 whole woolly mammoth genomes published to date, with plans to sequence more over time.

Once the herd of woolly mammoths population is large enough, population control will occur naturally and through thoughtful interventions. These are massive animals which are easy to keep track of and therefore control.

We recognize that woolly mammoth remains are being poached at increasingly high rates—leading to a Siberian woolly mammoth tusk gold rush. Tusks can be modified as needed to minimize their allure to poachers.

Once ready for rewilding, the first woolly mammoths will be spread across small, enclosed regions enabling their close tracking. Next, they will be introduced to the Arctic at large in a stepwise fashion. As with elephants, GPS trackers may be used to track the first individuals. Meanwhile, our dedicated team of scientists is furthering real-time acoustic monitoring technologies for advanced tracking capacities.

The genome of the woolly mammoth will be endowed with all the same baseline genetic immunity as that of its host genome species, the Asian elephant. 

However, research has shown that molecular evolution has led to differential inflammatory responses to immune threats in Asian versus African elephants—resulting in increased infectious disease susceptibility in Asian elephants, including a greater genetic susceptibility to elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV).  

Not only will the woolly mammoth be genetically endowed with a baseline level of immunity to contemporary pathogens, but we will enhance its immune system by identifying the genetic mutations that create susceptibility to EEHV in elephants, and eliminating them across all proboscideans—including extant elephants and de-extinct woolly mammoths.

As new challenges arise, we will continue to leverage our sequencing and gene editing technologies to keep our populations healthy and thriving.

Highly adaptable in terms of its dietary and behavioral habits, the woolly mammoth fed on both grass and small, nutritious flowering plants called forbs, such as poppies, buttercups, and anemones. Much of this flora survives today. 

As for the ecosystem changes that did take place right around the time of the extinction of most woolly mammoths 10,000 years ago, these were likely the result of woolly mammoth extinction—not the cause of it. This change in vegetation may also have caused more fires since the vegetation megaherbivores used to consume may have served as kindle. Similar trends have been observed following the megafaunal extinctions in the American Midwest, Madagascar, and Australia. 

Reintroduced to the Arctic, the woolly mammoth would thus help restructure plant communities through its feeding behaviors. In addition, its feces would fertilize the soil, nourishing a rich floral landscape, in turn keeping the animals healthy and thriving. 

Engineering a new woolly mammoth for reintroduction into the Arctic is the revival of an entire lost ecosystem, the mammoth steppe.

Following our engineering of multiple carefully selected cold-adaption traits, not only will the woolly mammoth be adept at thriving in current cold Arctic conditions, it will also be able to dynamically acclimate to environmental changes. 

Woolly mammoths were highly adaptable, traveling across a range of latitudes. Much like modern-day elephants, they had far-ranging migration patterns, adapting their diets and behaviors to the different climates they encountered. Their remains have been found as far south as the Shandong province of China and Spain.

The woolly mammoths will also naturally evolve to adapt to their environmental context through genetic (genes actually changing across generations) and epigenetic changes (genes learning to turn themselves on and off in response to environmental needs). 

Similarly, after the bucardo went extinct from the French Pyrenees, another subspecies of ibex was reintroduced there in 2014. Though it was hypothesized that no other type of ibex could survive in the arid, high altitude conditions of the bucardo’s range, the ibex is currently thriving. It is even beginning to develop the defining features of the bucardo with each new generation, growing increasingly well cold-adapted while fulfilling its original ecological role. 

The impact of Colossal’s woolly mammoths will be thoughtfully maximized. We are collaborating with a number of national and international government groups, our diverse advisory board which includes several of the top bioethicists in the world, and on the ground indigenous communities to safely, ethically, and strategically reintroduce the woolly mammoth into areas of low human and caribou population and high carbon densities (heavy in carbon-rich Yedoma permafrost) across the Arctic.

According to the most conservative models, with a desired woolly mammoth density of 0.2 woolly mammoths/km2–assuming 250 woolly mammoths are produced per year over 10 years—an end total of 2,500 woolly mammoths would cover about 13,000 km2 of Arctic permafrost. Such an area is estimated to store nearly 58 metric tons of methane, while grasslands over such an area are estimated to hold another 9 metric tons of carbon dioxide, meaning that a total of 67 metric tons of greenhouse gasses would be kept from being emitted into the atmosphere by a density of 0.2 woolly mammoths/km2. 

Furthermore, once reintroduced, the benefits of woolly mammoths in the Arctic are scalable: Mammoth reintroduction to the Arctic will trigger a number of cascading effects with impacts on the entire ecosystem.  

Both nature (genes) and nurture (environment) influence how an organism acquires knowledge in early development. 

Given that woolly mammoth genomes are genetically modified derivatives of the Asian elephant genome, the woolly mammoths will retain many of the same genetically-encoded behaviors—including intuitive capacities for navigation, foraging, and survival.

Their surrogate Asian elephant mothers will also teach the young all their elephant ways, and on-the-ground animal behavior specialist teams will provide additional support: while leveraging the expertise of our elephant reproductive science specialists Dr. Wendy Kiso and Dr. Thomas Hildebrandt, we will continue to collaborate with conservation groups, such as Elephant Havens, which have substantial experience in elephant rearing.

Permafrost is frozen organic matter which harbors vast amounts of carbon (2 times that which is found in the atmosphere today). The thawing of this “sleeping giant” will have detrimental effects on our climate and life as we know it.

Woolly mammoths were heavy and highly mobile, weighing in at 6 tons, or the equivalent of an average tractor, and traveling, like elephants, long distances throughout their ~60-year lifespans. Treading on the snow in the winter months would compress it, allowing the Arctic air to penetrate it more easily– maintaining the ground colder for longer. 

Mathematical models have estimated that repopulating the Arctic with herbivores could decrease Arctic temperatures by up to 1.9°C annually. 

Woolly mammoths also alter the vegetation architecture of their habitat at a fundamental level. As ecological engineers, knocking down trees and shrubs, woolly mammoths help maintain a grassy mammoth steppe. Capturing carbon in their vast root systems and carpeting a smooth surface largely reflecting hot sunrays, grasslands increase the ground’s albedo and keep ambient temperatures cooler.

Our first concern is population growth. The last woolly mammoths went extinct in Russia’s Wrangel island as a result of isolation which led to inbreeding and a loss of genetic diversity. Our primary concern is a sufficient degree of genetic diversity within the first herds of woolly mammoths to ensure a strong, sustainably fertile, and healthy population. To this end, Colossal is analyzing 53 whole woolly mammoth genomes published to date, with plans to sequence more over time.

Once the herd of woolly mammoths population is large enough, population control will occur naturally and through thoughtful interventions. These are massive animals which are easy to keep track of and therefore control.

We recognize that woolly mammoth remains are being poached at increasingly high rates—leading to a Siberian woolly mammoth tusk gold rush. Tusks can be modified as needed to minimize their allure to poachers.

Once ready for rewilding, the first woolly mammoths will be spread across small, enclosed regions enabling their close tracking. Next, they will be introduced to the Arctic at large in a stepwise fashion. As with elephants, GPS trackers may be used to track the first individuals. Meanwhile, our dedicated team of scientists is furthering real-time acoustic monitoring technologies for advanced tracking capacities.

The genome of the woolly mammoth will be endowed with all the same baseline genetic immunity as that of its host genome species, the Asian elephant. 

However, research has shown that molecular evolution has led to differential inflammatory responses to immune threats in Asian versus African elephants—resulting in increased infectious disease susceptibility in Asian elephants, including a greater genetic susceptibility to elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV).  

Not only will the woolly mammoth be genetically endowed with a baseline level of immunity to contemporary pathogens, but we will enhance its immune system by identifying the genetic mutations that create susceptibility to EEHV in elephants, and eliminating them across all proboscideans—including extant elephants and de-extinct woolly mammoths.

As new challenges arise, we will continue to leverage our sequencing and gene editing technologies to keep our populations healthy and thriving.

Highly adaptable in terms of its dietary and behavioral habits, the woolly mammoth fed on both grass and small, nutritious flowering plants called forbs, such as poppies, buttercups, and anemones. Much of this flora survives today. 

As for the ecosystem changes that did take place right around the time of the extinction of most woolly mammoths 10,000 years ago, these were likely the result of woolly mammoth extinction—not the cause of it. This change in vegetation may also have caused more fires since the vegetation megaherbivores used to consume may have served as kindle. Similar trends have been observed following the megafaunal extinctions in the American Midwest, Madagascar, and Australia. 

Reintroduced to the Arctic, the woolly mammoth would thus help restructure plant communities through its feeding behaviors. In addition, its feces would fertilize the soil, nourishing a rich floral landscape, in turn keeping the animals healthy and thriving. 

Engineering a new woolly mammoth for reintroduction into the Arctic is the revival of an entire lost ecosystem, the mammoth steppe.

Following our engineering of multiple carefully selected cold-adaption traits, not only will the woolly mammoth be adept at thriving in current cold Arctic conditions, it will also be able to dynamically acclimate to environmental changes. 

Woolly mammoths were highly adaptable, traveling across a range of latitudes. Much like modern-day elephants, they had far-ranging migration patterns, adapting their diets and behaviors to the different climates they encountered. Their remains have been found as far south as the Shandong province of China and Spain.

The woolly mammoths will also naturally evolve to adapt to their environmental context through genetic (genes actually changing across generations) and epigenetic changes (genes learning to turn themselves on and off in response to environmental needs). 

Similarly, after the bucardo went extinct from the French Pyrenees, another subspecies of ibex was reintroduced there in 2014. Though it was hypothesized that no other type of ibex could survive in the arid, high altitude conditions of the bucardo’s range, the ibex is currently thriving. It is even beginning to develop the defining features of the bucardo with each new generation, growing increasingly well cold-adapted while fulfilling its original ecological role. 

The impact of Colossal’s woolly mammoths will be thoughtfully maximized. We are collaborating with a number of national and international government groups, our diverse advisory board which includes several of the top bioethicists in the world, and on the ground indigenous communities to safely, ethically, and strategically reintroduce the woolly mammoth into areas of low human and caribou population and high carbon densities (heavy in carbon-rich Yedoma permafrost) across the Arctic.

According to the most conservative models, with a desired woolly mammoth density of 0.2 woolly mammoths/km2–assuming 250 woolly mammoths are produced per year over 10 years—an end total of 2,500 woolly mammoths would cover about 13,000 km2 of Arctic permafrost. Such an area is estimated to store nearly 58 metric tons of methane, while grasslands over such an area are estimated to hold another 9 metric tons of carbon dioxide, meaning that a total of 67 metric tons of greenhouse gasses would be kept from being emitted into the atmosphere by a density of 0.2 woolly mammoths/km2. 

Furthermore, once reintroduced, the benefits of woolly mammoths in the Arctic are scalable: Mammoth reintroduction to the Arctic will trigger a number of cascading effects with impacts on the entire ecosystem.  

Both nature (genes) and nurture (environment) influence how an organism acquires knowledge in early development. 

Given that woolly mammoth genomes are genetically modified derivatives of the Asian elephant genome, the woolly mammoths will retain many of the same genetically-encoded behaviors—including intuitive capacities for navigation, foraging, and survival.

Their surrogate Asian elephant mothers will also teach the young all their elephant ways, and on-the-ground animal behavior specialist teams will provide additional support: while leveraging the expertise of our elephant reproductive science specialists Dr. Wendy Kiso and Dr. Thomas Hildebrandt, we will continue to collaborate with conservation groups, such as Elephant Havens, which have substantial experience in elephant rearing.

Permafrost is frozen organic matter which harbors vast amounts of carbon (2 times that which is found in the atmosphere today). The thawing of this “sleeping giant” will have detrimental effects on our climate and life as we know it.

Woolly mammoths were heavy and highly mobile, weighing in at 6 tons, or the equivalent of an average tractor, and traveling, like elephants, long distances throughout their ~60-year lifespans. Treading on the snow in the winter months would compress it, allowing the Arctic air to penetrate it more easily– maintaining the ground colder for longer. 

Mathematical models have estimated that repopulating the Arctic with herbivores could decrease Arctic temperatures by up to 1.9°C annually. 

Woolly mammoths also alter the vegetation architecture of their habitat at a fundamental level. As ecological engineers, knocking down trees and shrubs, woolly mammoths help maintain a grassy mammoth steppe. Capturing carbon in their vast root systems and carpeting a smooth surface largely reflecting hot sunrays, grasslands increase the ground’s albedo and keep ambient temperatures cooler.

The dingo is a human-introduced species that never made it to Tasmania. Across Tasmania, the thylacine was the apex predator.

As for mainland Australia, while the dingo is present as an apex predator, the thylacine was around for far longer than the dingo. The dingo arrived in Australia just around 4,000 years ago while the thylacine’s lineage dates back to 160 million years ago. The thylacine was the land’s native species bred over millions of years of evolution to fulfill its unique ecological role there.

In addition, the dingo and thylacine occupied different ecological niches. The thylacine had a greater bite force and was likely a smaller game hunter than the dingo. 

Given its ancient, irreplaceable ecological function, the thylacine is an exemplary candidate for de-extinction, and it is our responsibility to bring it back.

The de-extinction of the thylacine, which has been spearheaded by Andrew Pask of the University of Melbourne for the last two decades, requires 10 distinct steps.

The genomes of the thylacine and one of its closest living Dasyurid relatives need to be sequenced, after which marsupial cell lines must be established before beginning to gene edit the hundreds of thylacine loci into a host genome. Thereafter, we must generate the thylacine embryo, implant it into a surrogate dunnart mother for gestation (8-42 days), and transfer it to an external artificial pouch for maturation. 

As firm believers in radical transparency, we will publicly share all significant progress through this process.

Our embryology and animal husbandry team of experts will use in-vitro fertilization to implant our thylacine embryo into a dunnart for the very initial stages of gestation. 

Marsupials however, including the dunnart, give birth to an immature young, about the size of a grain of rice. To continue to gestate, they need to travel to the mothers’ pouch and latch onto a nipple. We are therefore working to develop an ex-utero pouch to transfer the embryo to for the remainder of the maturation period of the thylacine. 

We encourage you to read through the details of this fascinating process here.

We first plan to reintroduce the thylacine to the southeast Australian island of Tasmania, after which we will reintroduce it to mainland Australia. 

We will strategically select locations for the reintroduction of the thylacine that will not interfere with the lives of local Aboriginal communities. These locations will also ensure the presence of sufficient mesopredators to hunt. 

Our goal is to ensure that the thylacine takes up its functional role as a unique carnivorous marsupial apex predator within its native ecosystem.

The thylacine is an extinct marsupial, commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or the Tasmanian wolf, that was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea.

As a carnivorous apex predator, it was a keystone species in the Australian ecosystem with a critical role in regulating its ecosystem by controlling prey species populations, minimizing the effects of invasive species, and removing weak or sick animals.

The last known live animal was captured in 1930 in Tasmania and went extinct in a zoo in 1936.

More information on the thylacine and its history can be found here.

Reintroducing a keystone species into its original, native habitats—within which it plays a key functional role—is not only constructive, but critical to the healthy function of the ecosystem and its floral and faunal species. This strategy forms a core pillar of rewilding, a global movement to restore ecosystems which has been met with tremendous success in the last few decades.

The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the 1960s is one such example. Without the checks and balances of the wolf as apex predator, Yellowstone grew rampant with deer, whose overgrazing compromised the fragile balance of the ecosystem. Nearly 70 Canadian wolves were brought back to the park—galvanizing a trophic cascade which rebalanced the Yellowstone landscape—and as of December 2021, the greater Yellowstone region harbors over 500 wolves roaming a vibrant ecosystem, brimming with life. 

Beyond rewilding, from the inception of our vision at Colossal to the final reintroduction of de-extinct species into their native habitats, every step of the way is well-informed, thoughtful, and intentional.

We are pioneering disruptive conservation by advancing technologies to restore extinct species, protect endangered ones, and rebuild ecosystems that support life on Earth. Our conservation strategy is broken up into three primary fronts:

1.De-extinction: We are focused on the de-extinction of keystone species, the return of which to their original habitats will help restore ecosystems impoverished by their absence. Alongside rewilding, this will help rebuild entire ecosystems from the Arctic to the wilds of Tasmania, which, in turn, will slow or even reverse the effects of climate change.

Hand-in-hand with our de-extinction efforts, we are also funding the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP) to  sequence the genomes of endangered species—creating open-access, high quality reference genomes of endangered species. 

2.Conservation innovation: The de-extinction toolkit we are developing has immediate impacts on endangered species protection and restoration.

For example, using our assisted reproduction technologies needed for species restoration (including in vitro fertilization, gamete creation, and embryo production), we can address endangered populations such as the Sumatran rhinoceros. 

3.Conservation partnerships: Given that our de-extinction technologies and strategies address many, but not all, extinction forces, we are building a portfolio of conservation partnerships to help address conservation in a holistic and sustainable manner.

For example, we are providing funding, expertise, and resources to the Baylor College of Medicine to develop, manufacture, and distribute two vaccines against the Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpes Virus (EEHV) which is currently threatening elephant populations worldwide.

We are also funding drones for Save the Elephants to monitor elephant populations in Kenya to prevent poaching and collect video data of elephant behavior. Our machine learning team will then analyze this data to help guide our strategic protection of the habitats elephants prefer to use.

Since Elephant Havens is the only orphanage in Botswana, home to the largest population of African elephants, we are providing funding and expertise to help Elephant Havens expand their operation, managing calves to maturity and rewilding elephants.

Finally, we are also actively funding and collaborating with our fantastic conservation partners at the International Elephant Foundation, Re:wild, Aussie Ark, and WildArk in order to support elephant and marsupial populations and the communities that surround them across the board.

Born out of Colossal Biosciences, Form Bio is a new, cutting-edge research and discovery platform for life sciences professionals in industry and academia. With the most accessible, comprehensive and collaborative platform in the field, Form empowers scientists to efficiently and effectively harness the proliferation of data and computing power that has transformed the science of discovery.

Form offers end-to-end integration of the discovery process with intuitive and easy-to-use software applications, combined with an open and adaptable collaborative environment.

We are developing de-extinction technologies which include massively parallel genetic editing, gametogenesis (making healthy sperm and egg cells from edited stem cells), advanced in vitro fertilization, and artificial wombs. These form modular, holistic toolkits which can be directly applied to support endangered species.

For example, we are developing an artificial marsupial pouch for our thylacine de-extinction. This pouch will provide conservationists with the ability to quickly scale up marsupial populations by providing more teats and pouches for young that do not find a place on one of the dam’s six teats. Instead of one litter producing six offspring, this technology enables us to mature up to all thirty offspring from each litter.  

By streamlining research and development in medicine, our technologies are also galvanizing human health research. Originally conceived to meet the computational needs of Colossal’s science teams, our first spinoff Form Bio serves as a comprehensive research and discovery platform which supports a large set of challenges across the life sciences. These range from drug discovery to advanced biologics to gene and cell therapy development. On the road to de-extinction, our vision is just as much about building capability as it is about reversing the loss of a specific species: We are pioneering disruptive conservation technologies that are not only applicable to current conservation contexts, but that will also revolutionize our ability to strengthen virtually any organism—past, present, and future.

By definition, to “resurrect” is “to restore to life; revive the practice, use, or memory of (something); bring new vigor to”. To “recreate” is “to create again; reproduce; re-enact”. 

We are leveraging CRISPR-based genetic engineering to reproduce close approximations (not clones) of extinct species’ genomes in order to restore the species to life.

Through de-extinction, we are thus genetically recreating genomes in order to resurrect species.

For context, our Dictionary of De-extinction provides background on the semantics of de-extinction.

The genomes of Colossal’s de-extinct species will be reconstructed by genetically engineering those of their closest living relatives.

Therefore, while it is not currently possible to bring back an extinct species that is genetically, behaviorally, and psychologically identical in every way, they will have all the core biological traits of their recently extinct ancestors.

They will walk like them, look like them, sound like them, and, most importantly, behave like them—fulfilling their original ecological roles within the native ecosystems impoverished by their disappearance.

CRISPR is a Nobel Prize-winning technology used for recognizing and cutting a specific code of DNA inside the cell. CRISPR technology was first observed in bacteria, but scientists have been able to re-engineer this CRISPR technology to work in human and animal cells. 

In mammalian cells (such as those of an elephant or a woolly mammoth), classic CRISPR works with a Cas9 enzyme, a guide RNA and a donor DNA fragment to modify genes. CRISPR/Cas9 recognizes a specific DNA sequence where the Cas9 enzyme will cleave close to an adjacent identifier DNA sequence. Once this DNA is cut, synthetic laboratory-made DNA can be re-inserted in its place.

At Colossal, this enables us to insert specific characteristics into a species’ DNA—leading to the generation of a close approximation of an extinct species’ genome. We encourage you to get curious about the extraordinary science and applications of CRISPR here.