Colossal says creating woolly mice is a ‘validation step’ for de-extinction and could help eradicate diseases

It was a busy week for Colossal Biosciences: On Tuesday, it introduced the world to the first-ever woolly mice; by Wednesday, those mice were going viral; and on Saturday, they were the topic of a bit on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update.

The success of genetically engineering these little creatures represented a huge leap toward a bigger goal: bringing back the woolly mammoth. After spending 2.5 years editing mammoth genes, the team applied their work to mice rather than trying to create a creature that has been extinct for thousands of years.

“The genetic engineering of the mouse, while it’s a mouse, it’s a marvel of science in terms of where we are from an innovation perspective,” Ben Lamm, cofounder and CEO of Colossal, said Sunday during a discussion at the Fast Company Grill at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin.

What many people misunderstood, Lamm said, was that successfully creating woolly mice was a “validation step” rather than a “first step” in the woolly mammoth de-extinction process. “It shows that our precision editing, and the results of our precision editing, work and they worked the first time.”

More than just hairy mice

The woolly mice have bigger implications for the Dallas-based company, even beyond its de-extinction and species preservation pipeline of projects. What the team has learned about epigenetics and genome engineering can also be used to combat diseases, added Joe Manganiello, the actor and producer who is an investor in Colossal. 

“There are clues within genetic information as to eradicating all disease, and really all of the ills of man,” Manganiello told the audience.

He’s had a lifelong fascination with biology, genetics and the field of epigenetics because his great-grandmother survived the Armenian genocide. He said his life’s mission has been to learn about generational trauma and find a way to end it.

The de-extinction work, Manganiello said, is just the tip of a giant iceberg, as Colossal’s research has so many broad-reaching implications that could improve humanity and our communion with nature.

“It would be unethical to not pursue this type of science, to not try to preserve and understand the ecosystems that are being destroyed and what needs to be replaced.” 

But as both Manganiello and Lamm acknowledged, there are a lot of ethical considerations inherent to this burgeoning field of science. There’s a respect for different life forms because in the wrong hands this technology could create some “weird” stuff, they agreed.

“There’s a bit of a Manhattan Project to it as well, in that you want to make sure that it’s in the hands of people that are going to handle it ethically,” Manganiello said, referencing the World War II program to develop the first atomic bombs.

Mammoth implications

The work Colossal is doing is often compared to a modern-day Jurassic Park, but there are benefits to de-extinction that may not be so obvious. Lamm said he initially reached out to George Church, “the father of synthetic biology,” about an idea for a different company, but that conversation quickly turned to the beginnings of Colossal.

“I just said, ‘George, if you had one project with unlimited capital, what would you do?’” Lamm recalled. “And he said, ‘I’d work to bring back wooly mammoths, reintroduce them into the Arctic, help suppress carbon and methane in the ecosystem, and make technologies for human healthcare and also for conservation.’”

As a tech entrepreneur, Lamm said he saw the opportunity to inspire people and make a pretty big impact. The work colossal is doing could help improve the pregnancy outcomes for in vitro fertilization (IVF), for example, while Lamm said officials from the tropical island of Mauritius are “so excited” about Colossal’s plans to revive the dodo bird from extinction, and estimate it could triple GDP for the tropical island country. 

And Lamm said that conservation partnerships are key to such rewilding efforts that will spawn better carbon sequestration, better methane suppression, and lead to more fauna and more flora. 

“Colossal is not the silver bullet,” Lamm added. “We want to be one thread of a much larger tapestry of technologies that people can go use to actually bring back species or save other species.” 

Finally, one of the “halo effects” of this research is inspiring the next generation of scientists, Lamm said. This is particularly important given projections that the planet will lose up to 50% of all biodiversity by 2050 and current technology doesn’t work at commensurate speed.

“We’re trying to do something insanely hard that no one’s ever done—that’s like moon landing-level shit—and we’re trying to do it in a couple years,” Lamm said.

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