On my recent visit to Colossal Biosciences’ new Dallas headquarters, still under construction ahead of its October opening, I asked for the latest update on one of the company’s most ambitious projects: the return of the woolly mammoth.

After touring the new offices and labs, I sat down with Colossal Biosciences CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm to learn about the new location and dig into the business of Colossal. In our interview, Lamm confirmed that the company remains on track with their plans for the Woolly Mammoth.

“Our goal is end of 2028. We’re on track with that from the editing perspective,” Lamm says. This 2028 target is only a year off from the original 2021 report, when the Colossal Biosciences launched with an early goal of a 2027 launch for the Mammoth project.

Back in 2017, four years before Colossal was founded, National Geographic reported on geneticist George Church’s early mammoth work, describing the effort as bold but speculative. At the time, Church suggested a roughly two-to-three-year goal for a first birth. Today, Church is a co-founder and lead geneticist of Colossal, which has expanded and solidified that vision into a global company with a fixed 2028 target.

Courtesy Colossal Biosciences

Unlike traditional conservation programs that focus on one path of research, Colossal is moving forward on multiple fronts simultaneously. “We do all these technologies in parallel. So, we do the bio, the editing, cellular engineering, and then also the reproductive work, both for surrogacy and artificial wombs," Lamm continues. "Surrogacy stuff and elephants, just because of the population size is much harder.”

The science is advancing quickly, and I saw some of the small-scale artificial wombs in development in one of the labs, but Lamm noted that biology isn’t the only challenge.

“We’re still on track for 2028. The biggest gaining factor will be the surrogacy side and, less so, the science of it, because I think we’ll have all of that solved. It will just be the access,” referring to limited options for surrogates. “But we're working through that right now. So, we're working with all the top elephant partners on that,” Lamm adds.

Colossal is developing assisted reproductive technologies (ART) not only for the mammoth but also for other critically endangered species. “We are advancing all, it’s called ART, assisted reproductive technologies, which also has massive applications to conservation. So, you can do captive breeding of the most endangered species. You don’t even need artificial wombs. Eventually, you’ll productionize it with artificial wombs,” Lamm said.

How Do We Find Woolly Mammoth DNA?

Colossal’s ambitions are not limited to its Texas headquarters. Chief Animal Officer Matt James pointed to collaborations with leading researchers around the world. “We’re working closely with Harvard on the woolly mammoth project,” he said.

Fieldwork is just as critical as lab work. “In the case of something like a woolly mammoth, we work with university partners, especially this guy Love Dalén from Stockholm, and he’s out there doing mammoth expeditions all the time, finding new specimens and driving new samples for us to be able to see them.” Each new specimen offers additional DNA that can refine Colossal’s genetic models and ensure accuracy in the recreation process.

Sara Ord, Director of Species Restoration at Colossal, gave us a tour of the labs and expanded on how Colossal collects and sequences mammoth DNA. “For the woolly mammoth, the permafrost is such a great preserver of the DNA, but you have to be on site right when it gets exposed to oxygen again, so that you can go and grab that tissue in real time,” she explained.

"We have been able to get over 50 different mammoth individuals, which is really awesome because it is ancient DNA, so it is fragmented, but because we have so many individuals, they all fill in different pieces of the puzzle," Ord continued. "So we have a really good understanding of the mammoth genome."

“Previously, the oldest sample we were able to sequence was 800,000 years old. We actually just broke that record and are now at 1.2 million,” noted Ord about sequencing records continuing to be broken. “The oldest sample that's ever been sequenced is the 1.2 million year-old mammoth - Pretty exciting for ancient DNA and for Colossal. It just goes to show how many people are excited about this and willing to work together on this kind of project.”

“The next thing we'll do is sequence the closest living relatives. We need to understand what the host species that we will use to bring back this species. For the woolly mammoth, it's the Asian elephant.”

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