Colossal Biosciences Is Investing in Ancient DNA Research To Understand Species Past and Present

As the world’s first de-extinction company dedicated to reviving iconic species like the woolly mammoth, dodo, and Tasmanian tiger, Colossal Biosciences is particularly interested in ancient DNA. From investigating the traits and behaviors of ancient and modern species to illuminating crucial diversity lost to generations, the study of ancient DNA has a variety of applications to the current de-extinction and conservation movements. That’s why Colossal has committed a $7.5 million investment into the academic research of ancient DNA.

“The past can be thought of as a completed evolutionary experiment that can inform how we decide to manage ecosystems today and into the future,” said Beth Shapiro, Ph.D., Colossal Biosciences’ chief science officer and an expert on ancient DNA. Shapiro is overseeing the company’s ancient DNA research and funding distribution. “We believe that to support a biodiverse future, we must facilitate ancient DNA research worldwide. Ancient DNA is the world’s discovery sandbox and it holds millions of yet-to-be-discovered secrets that we can use to improve our planet’s future.”

This investment has partnered Colossal with universities around the world researching a diverse plethora of ancient extinct species such as blue bucks, long-horned bison, Columbian mammoths, dire wolves, giant sloths, great auks, Irish elk, cave hyenas, moas, saber-toothed cats, woolly rhinoceroses, mastodons, tooth-billed pigeons, American cheetahs, giant short-faced bears, and Steller’s sea cows.

With a field as novel as ancient DNA, the advancements and discoveries that this research fosters have the potential to provide industry-wide insights and accelerate Colossal’s efforts to revive extinct species. 

“Instead of us trying to solve everything, why don’t we go to the top researchers of the world, fund their massively underfunded research, and let us glean from that scientific papers and research that can be shared with the entire world. And then we can leverage that for some of our own research,” Ben Lamm, Colossal’s co-founder and CEO, told Syfy Wire.

Along with this funding, Colossal Biosciences plans to develop a shared technological hub for researchers of ancient DNA, where the global community can collaborate on projects with a shared set of tools and data.

The Colossal Beneficiaries of Ancient DNA Research

Despite being severely underfunded, ancient DNA research can uncover information key to understanding a species’ evolution and modern-day adaptations. Initial findings from Colossal’s funding have already uncovered insights into the cause of certain extinctions and outlined modern species’ potential reactions and adaptations to the current state of life on Earth.

The cave hyena, an ice age-era hyena known for its impressive stature, is one ancient species whose Colossal-funded research can provide noteworthy insight into our own history. 

“Hyenas don’t get the attention they deserve. Most people don’t even know that hyenas lived in Europe and Asia until the end of the last ice age. I was very excited when Colossal offered to step up and support my research on the extinct cave hyena through genome sequencing funding when nobody else would,” Michael Westbury, assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen, noted in a statement.

Westbury’s work with ancient hyena DNA has already uncovered interesting facts about the species and ourselves, including how its prehistoric migration patterns overlapped with humans. 

“Prehistoric humans and hyenas left Africa at approximately the same time. And like humans, spotted hyenas have had extensive and complex migration between continents,” he told Heritage Daily.

These findings not only provide evidence of a potential ancient mammalian migration, but also align the cave hyena’s decline with human advancement, suggesting that we played a role in the species’ extinction. 

When it comes to modern species, Colossal Biosciences expects upcoming research into the extinct woolly rhinoceros to inform the conservation of the northern white rhinoceros, one of the most endangered animals in the world with only two remaining individuals. 

By conducting a comparative genomic analysis between the woolly rhinoceros and its distant relative, the northern white rhino, there’s the potential to uncover information crucial to the critically endangered species’ survival.

“We’re not working on a wooly rhino project, but we are working with Dr. Thomas Hildebrandt and the team at BioRescue on saving the northern white rhino. If we could study woolly rhinoceroses, maybe that will give us insight into population diversity and genetic divergence for saving the northern white rhino,” Lamm told Syfy Wire.

Woolly rhino research might also reveal information on cold adaptations beneficial to Colossal’s mammoth project. Said Lamm, “Maybe there are lost genes or traits, even just biodiversity, that can be engineered back into certain lineages, like in the case of the northern white rhino.”

An Investment in Ancient Understanding

With Colossal just four years from the woolly mammoth’s expected return in 2028, the company can greatly benefit from investments toward a collective understanding of ancient DNA. 

“There’s a lot of scientific discovery that has to happen between now and [2028], and ideally, we could predict exactly when we’re going to make discoveries, and then we can build on those. But that’s just not the way biology works,” Shapiro said in a recent interview with Gizmodo.

As the company continues to look for new and innovative ancient DNA research partners, there’s no telling what breakthroughs may be discovered. Recently, Colossal’s microbial research paid off when its spinout company, Breaking, found what it calls microbe X-32, a microorganism that can degrade common plastics like polyolefins, polyesters, and polyamides in as few as 22 months, leaving behind only water, carbon dioxide, and biomass. 

With the inherent interconnectedness of ancient DNA research, Colossal’s more than $7.5 million in funding can massively accelerate discoveries to transform de-extinction, conservation, and biology as a whole.

As Ben Lamm put it, “Ancient DNA is the most complicated DNA on the planet. I think about it as if we are trying to put together a puzzle, but we don’t know exactly what the puzzle looks like or how many pieces are missing.

“When breakthrough research occurs, it can cascade to improve genomics research for everyone on the planet while really stress testing some of the [artificial intelligence] tools that Colossal is building. We want to help the researchers who are chasing breakthrough discoveries because we believe that attempting to do breakthrough science is what really drives true step function scientific change.”