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CRISPR Startup Raises $15M in Seed Round, Aims to Bring Back Woolly Mammoth


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2021 Sep 17, 4:34pm   334 views  12 comments

by Al_Sharpton_for_President   ➕follow (5)   💰tip   ignore  

NEW YORK – Bioscience and genetics company Colossal launched on Monday with $15 million in seed funding and the self-appointed mission of advancing the field of species de-extinction, starting with restoring the long-extinct woolly mammoth to the Arctic tundra.

The company — which was cofounded by geneticist George Church and emerging technology and software entrepreneur Ben Lamm — said it is aiming to fight the effects of climate change through the restoration of the ecosystem. Through the use of CRISPR technology, Colossal plans to develop a practical, working model of de-extinction, with the goal of returning extinct species to their original habitats so they can revitalize lost ecosystems for a healthier planet.

With respect to the mammoth, the company said that restoring the prehistoric beast to its long-ago habitat has the potential of revitalizing the Arctic grasslands, which would have properties to combat climate change, including carbon sequestering, methane suppression, and light reflection.

Through a sponsored research agreement, Colossal will support research in Church's lab at Harvard Medical School, with the aim of creating an elephant-mammoth hybrid that is genetically engineered with traits to help it survive in the Arctic. The partners are hoping that the project will also yield technological advances in multiplexed genetic engineering, synthetic biology, and other emerging areas of research.

Further, the company also has an exclusive license agreement coordinated by the Harvard Office of Technology Development to commercialize the technologies developed during the course of the research collaboration with the Church lab.

Colossal's oversubscribed $15 million seed round was led by investor Thomas Tull, and included participation by Breyer Capital, Draper Associates, Animal Capital, At One Ventures, Jazz Ventures, Jeff Wilke, Bold Capital, Global Space Ventures, Climate Capital, Winklevoss Capital, Liquid2 Ventures, Capital Factory, Tony Robbins, and First Light Capital.

Lamm will serve as CEO; internet entrepreneur Andrew Busey will serve as chief product officer; former cofounder and president of Integral Ad Science Kent Wakeford will serve as chief operating officer; former managing partner of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati, Brian Beard, will serve as chief legal officer; former executive VP and general manager of Interactive and Distribution at Marvel Entertainment Peter Phillips will serve as chief business officer; and Eriona Hysolli, a former postdoctoral fellow in the Church lab from 2015 to 2021, will serve as head of biological sciences. Hysolli focused on developing and optimizing novel genetic tools for multiplex mammalian genome engineering when she worked in Church's lab, including mammoth de-extinction and building a virus-resistant human cell line.

"Never before has humanity been able to harness the power of this technology to rebuild ecosystems, heal our Earth, and preserve its future through the repopulation of extinct animals," Lamm said in a statement. "In addition to bringing back ancient extinct species like the woolly mammoth, we will be able to leverage our technologies to help preserve critically endangered species that are on the verge of extinction and restore animals where humankind had a hand in their demise."

https://www.genomeweb.com/gene-silencinggene-editing/crispr-startup-raises-15m-seed-round-aims-bring-back-woolly-mammoth#.YUUmeC1h2v4


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1   richwicks   2021 Sep 17, 4:52pm  

It's stupid to even attempt to bring back the woolly mammoth.

First, it went extinct all over the globe for some reason, so therefore it's unlikely to be suitable to the world as it is today.

Second, unless they can recover a functional egg from a female (very doubtful!), they will have to make it a hybrid between an elephant and a mammoth. It would have the mitochondrial DNA of an elephant. It would have to have the same number of chromosomes as the elephant too, and I doubt they even have a complete working set of chromosomes.

This just costs money, and doesn't produce anything other than "gee whiz" stuff.
2   HeadSet   2021 Sep 17, 4:57pm  

Bringing back an animal that died out long before human civilization will bring back the Artic tundra? And which mammoth? North America, as evidenced by those tar pits, was host to dozens of distinct mammoth and mastodon like species. If you can gene splice to bring back the past, bring us 21 year old versions of Jill St John and Raquel Welch.
3   Ceffer   2021 Sep 17, 4:58pm  

"Gee, thanks. You woke us up just to get killed by another fucking meteorite, or a nuclear bomb."
4   Ceffer   2021 Sep 17, 5:03pm  

"Raquel's heaving ta ta's, or we're going back into the ground!"
5   KgK one   2021 Sep 17, 5:07pm  

They can bring back all the hot women by getting DNA from their graves or replicate new hottest Megan fox from original transformers.
6   HeadSet   2021 Sep 17, 5:10pm  

KgK one says
They can bring back all the hot women by getting DNA from their graves or replicate new hottest Megan fox from original transformers.

Sounds like a great "Shark Tank" proposition, or for some angel investor.
7   Booger   2021 Sep 17, 6:16pm  

richwicks says
First, it went extinct all over the globe for some reason,


Wiped out by humans hunting them
8   Patrick   2021 Sep 17, 6:33pm  

Ceffer says
"Raquel's heaving ta ta's, or we're going back into the ground!"


That image in the original post is quite compelling.
9   RWSGFY   2021 Sep 17, 7:15pm  

So how are they going to make money? Display ads on the beasts?
10   HeadSet   2021 Sep 17, 7:40pm  

Booger says
richwicks says
First, it went extinct all over the globe for some reason,


Wiped out by humans hunting them

Yeah, a sparse population of men armed with pointy sticks wiped out a continent of mammoths, mastodons, saber-tooth cats, and other large beasts. Surprised there are any large animals in Africa, where men have been around the longest.
11   just_passing_through   2021 Sep 17, 9:06pm  

George Church has been working on this for quite some time.

Nice to see a fellow reader of Genomeweb on Patnet!
12   richwicks   2021 Sep 17, 9:38pm  

Booger says
richwicks says
First, it went extinct all over the globe for some reason,


Wiped out by humans hunting them


It's possible, but I think it's doubtful.

Humans aren't generally so stupid as to hunt a food source to extinction but they will hunt a predator to extinction.

Even the Dodo probably didn't go extinct due to human hunting. Humans inadvertently introduced new predators and invasive species that out competed them for food.

What I think you're inadvertently repeating, is the same propaganda I heard as a kid "man BAAAAAD!". Think of Soylent Green. That was our constant propaganda about what the future was going to be like. Everything dead, pollution everywhere, people starving, bleak desolate future. It's 50 years later, nothing has changed since my childhood, except we have infinitely better access to information and communication.

Remember when the Panda was doomed to extinction? Remember "save the whales"? Remember the hole in the ozone layer? In the 1980's I heard sheep were going blind in south America because of the lack of the ozone layer. It was complete BS of course. Our media hasn't changed in decades. The arctic was said to be ice free one year due to global warming. There's a Simpson's episode where the only place in the United States that had snow was Springfield.

Propaganda isn't just in our "news", it's everywhere either purposely or inadvertently. Just watch The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on any random day of 2017. Heck, Sealab 2020 was shown in the 70s - the concept of that show is that humanity had a research lab on the ocean floor to expand food development. When I was in high school, I remember we had to watch some "what if?" films in which it was placed in the future and it was some legal/civics question that was posed - but I'll never forgot that by the distant year 2015, people would be driving around in tiny dinky cars that were electric, that did 15 miles an hour, and my teacher made a SPECIFIC point to mention that was our future. Logan's Run was after a nuclear war (both the film and tv show), Space 1999 started with a nuclear disaster on the moon blowing it out of orbit, the moon was just a nuclear waste dump.

Almost NOTHING had "the future is going to be awesome!" save for Star Trek, MAYBE - even that was like "earth really got screwed up by the 1990's and 2000's" - again, there was a nuclear war.

Even in 2001: A Space Odyssey the opening scene where the ape throws a bone in the air - a weapon it used to kill another ape, and it flies into the air, and it transitions to what looks like a space station in orbit? Nope - that's another weapon, orbital nuclear platform. Everything projected doom. EVERYTHING did.

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