Moonshots / Peter Diamandis
AI + Synthetic Biology: The Most Transformative Technology in Human History | Ben Lamm (Colossal)
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TL;DR
Research summary
▶ Colossal’s origins and AI-enabled platform
The conversation introduces the idea of bringing back the woolly mammoth and the guest’s decision to build Colossal after initially considering funding the work as a side project. The host describes the company as having reached a stated $10 billion valuation in four years and calls it undervalued; the guest agrees. The guest says Colossal has 260 scientists, 200 in the United States and 60 in Australia, along with AI programmers. The guest argues that AI is essential to the company’s work and describes Colossal as a platform for designing and building living products.
▶ De-extinction as a route to biological tools
The guest says the company set out to build an end-to-end synthetic biology pipeline spanning computational biology, cellular engineering, genetic cloning, somatic cell nuclear transfer, and eventually artificial wombs. The guest says de-extinction was chosen because it would require solving difficult problems such as genotype-to-phenotype relationships, ancestral state reconstruction, and comparative genomics. Colossal’s first biological products spinout, Breaking, works on plastic degradation. The guest says its discovery involves a community of microbes whose enzymes can be edited to target different plastics, and that directed evolution and the company’s tools have increased the range and rate of plastic breakdown. The guest criticizes approaches that merely make smaller plastics or require harmful pretreatment. A host suggests a possible supplement to break down microplastics in the gut; this is presented as an idea, not as an existing product. The guest says plastic contamination affects the environment and human tissues and argues that multiple solutions will be needed.
▶ Announced species and the de-extinction business case
The guest lists the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, dodo, and moa as publicly announced projects, and says Colossal has made dire wolves and expects more that have not been announced. The speakers discuss images of woolly mammoth mice and dire wolves named Romulus and Remus. The guest recounts showing George R. R. Martin the animals and says the company used a 73,000-year-old skull to make puppies in 18 months. Asked about the business case, the guest relays an EY estimate based on educational content and related consumer spending: the guest says 12.5% of global consumers buy something extinct each year, amounting to about $1.7 trillion. The guest says the model could help subsidize the platform, support countries’ species preservation, and provide educational value, describing feedback so far as phenomenal.
▶ UAE biovault partnership and artificial womb projects
The guest says Colossal announced what it calls the world’s first animal biovault with the UAE as its first country partner. The guest describes existing animal biobanking as fragmented, says the company had to build reference genomes for species it works on, and argues for country participation, digital backups, and sharing data with the global scientific community. The guest says the UAE agreed to put hundreds of millions of dollars into biovaults, with educational content in a high-traffic area, and describes a related living lab as a nine-figure initiative for both the company and the country. The host frames countries as customers for preserving endangered species. The speakers discuss three artificial-womb projects for different animal groups; the guest explicitly says they do not work yet. The guest describes a future system combining biobanking, synthetic biology, automation, AI, computer vision, and artificial wombs to scale species development. As an example, the guest discusses the northern white rhino, saying two females remain, its population has low genetic diversity, and 18 embryos are related. The guest suggests engineered diversity and artificial wombs could change how resources are used, and argues that directed evolution may help species adapt as environments change.
▶ Cloning operations and engineered traits
The speakers discuss Colossal’s purchase of two cloning companies. The guest says ViaGen cloned 15 of the 18 species ever cloned and claims its cloning efficiency was consistently about 78%, compared with about 2% for cloning generally. The guest says ViaGen cloned endangered species such as the black-footed ferret using older cells. Colossal will continue consumer cloning, which the guest describes as profitable, while applying cloning technologies to critically endangered species in countries; the guest mentions forthcoming announcements with a local government. The host characterizes Colossal’s platform as using AI and synthetic biology to select traits and genes, including examples involving tusks, snout length, and enhancer sequences. The guest recalls being asked whether the company could create Pikachu, but the discussion does not present that as a current project. The guest says the company is focused on biodiversity and de-extinction.
▶ Disease resistance, biodiversity, and public acceptance
The speakers describe possible spinout applications including disease-resistant or drought-resistant plants and disease-resistant animals. The guest says Colossal is working on chytrid, which the guest calls a leading extinction driver in frogs and other amphibians, and says genetic engineering could address the disease and produce resistant amphibians. The guest says Colossal is not yet working on corals, dragons, or Pokémon, though a group is examining shared challenges such as vaccines and resistance across livestock and endangered species. The guest argues that synthetic biology paired with AI could be humanity’s most transformative technology and estimates markets for engineering resistant plants and animals at hundreds of billions of dollars today, while acknowledging the market is not well tracked. On public acceptance, the guest argues for education about GMOs and says Tasmanian tigers would legally count as GMOs under the relevant Australian framing, even if genetically identical, because they would combine material from 53 tigers across about 300 years. The guest says Colossal had to educate the Australian government about the implications of an anti-GMO stance for rewilding the species.
▶ Gene drives and invasive-species control
The speakers introduce gene drives, with the guest describing the area as 40% technology and 60% marketing. The guest says invasive species cause a globally measured impact of about $5.4 trillion and believes the true amount is larger; the guest also cites more than $500 billion a year in U.S. economic impact, while saying they do not know the domestic spending specifically directed against the problem. Examples include cane toads, cats, invasive carp, mosquitoes, and screwworm. The guest says screwworm is in southern Texas after moving through Honduras and Mexico and predicts it will severely affect cattle and bison. The guest contrasts animal vaccines, which involve regulatory and public-education challenges, with a proposed strategy of releasing genetically modified screwworms whose descendants would be male and eventually fail to reproduce. The guest says gene drives could reduce invasive populations over time while allowing animals to live normal lives, but notes that a mosquito gene-drive effort in Africa was stopped amid concerns and says mosquitoes are part of the food web. The guest claims Colossal has proprietary containment technologies intended to make release safer and allow reversal, and says the company is working with governments. The guest criticizes current control methods such as poisons, killing, and trapping as inhumane. The guest argues that synthetic biology applications beyond human healthcare may offer greater economic and societal benefits.
▶ Embryo health and IVF-related technology
The guest reiterates that artificial wombs do not work yet and says Colossal has three projects. Drawing on personal experience with IVF, the guest criticizes embryo selection based on morphological grading and says some embryos that look less promising at an early stage can prove healthier if observed longer. The guest says progress toward mammalian artificial wombs requires work across several placental types and describes a hydrogel and microfluidics device intended to keep embryos healthier. The guest claims the team has advanced embryos in mice and non-model species further than anyone else, while clarifying that it does not use the technology in humans. The guest says a different grading scale has proved more efficient and accurate in model and non-model species, and suggests the innovation could transform IVF.
▶ Technical progress and spinout strategy
Asked how quickly the field is moving, the guest says Colossal went from celebrating a few edits two or three years earlier to performing hundreds at a time, reporting 90% efficiency compared with 40% for its earlier work and 15% for what the guest says most others were achieving. The guest expects thousands of edits in coming years and says they are distributed across the genome. The guest says the technology could be applied to human healthcare but that Colossal would license or spin it out rather than pursue that area itself. The guest also claims its DNA synthesis delivery exceeds the largest delivery it has seen in research by fivefold and may reach twentyfold before the end of the year; these are the guest’s comparisons and projections. The guest attributes progress to a product and systems approach using AI, while noting other groups may have different goals. Colossal plans to remain focused on biodiversity and de-extinction, spin out discoveries such as plastic technologies with dedicated teams and capital, and share editing capabilities through intercompany agreements. The guest describes de-extinction and species preservation as a $10 trillion opportunity and says the company does not want to spread itself too thin.
Full transcript
[00:00] The idea bring back the woolly mammoth have been around for a long time. You jump in, take the mantle of CEO. I don't know if you were expecting to do that. I I was going to fund it as a side project for at first, but then I thought it was just really interesting. So, Colossal is a parent company is spinning out a dozen companies each of which have massive potential. >> Our first biological products company spun out, which was Breaking, which is our plastic degradation company. And so, the same system that can bring you a mammoth can also make microbes that can, you know, break the chemical bonds of
[00:30] plastic. I think every company is should be an AI company or is an AI company. Without AI, we would not be able to do anything that we're doing. What Ben is building inside of Colossal, being able to design using AI and then build living products. >> Our vision is Now, that's a moonshot, ladies and gentlemen. How do you like having Elon as your warm-up act? >> Yeah, that's the greatest thing ever. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's that's pretty awesome,
[01:00] so. >> And he he loves woolly mammoths. >> He does. He does, and he wants Jurassic Park. Yeah. He's not alone. He's not alone. I'm not saying that's for me. I'm just saying that he's not alone. >> I understand that. It's the number one request we get. Yes. Yeah, and then megalodons is two, which is also really weird. Well, megalodons are just cool. I mean, they they littered their teeth all over the ocean floor. They're still scary. I I said they're scary. Jaws times 100. >> enough of the ocean without it. >> Jaws times 100. Yeah. So, as we're going
[01:30] along here, please use your uh Slido app to add questions. So, I want First of all, I've known you now since pretty much the beginning of Colossal. >> Yeah, you were like first text. Yeah. >> First side text, yeah. And I uh am such a fan of you as a CEO first and foremost, and then second, the company. The idea bring back the woolly mammoth have been around for a long time. Um it had been played around in nonprofits and so forth. Uh let me summarize. This man meets
[02:00] George Church, one of the greatest, you know, synthetic biologists, CRISPR, gene editor, entrepreneur, professor at Harvard Medical School. And and you ask him, "What's your favorite pet project?" >> Yeah. I asked him if he had one project, if he could work on one project for the rest of time with unlimited capital, what would it be? He And he didn't hesitate. Like it wasn't like, "Let me think about it. Let me get back to you." And it was just instantly he's like, "I would work to bring back mammoths. I'd rewild them back into the ecosystems, and I'd build technology that could be
[02:30] applied to saving species and also human health care." Like he he just didn't hesitate. So, you jump in. Uh you take the mantle of CEO. I don't know if you were expecting to do that. I I was going to fund it as a side project for at first, but then I thought it was just really interesting. You build a company which goes from zero to $10 billion valuation four years. It's massively undervalued. I I totally agree with you. Yeah, it I love you. Um and it's just it's it's you as the
[03:00] CEO who has done this. You built an extraordinary team. How big is the Thank you so much, Ben. How big is the team now? Uh we have 260 scientists, uh 200 here in the US and 60 in Australia. And a significant number of AI programmers. >> Yeah, exactly. >> You become an AI company. >> Yeah, yeah. We I think every company is it should be an AI company or is an AI company. Uh so, we feel like the synthetic biology part of our work is really interesting. So, we don't So, we So, we don't always like lead with AI, but AI without AI we would not be able
[03:31] to anything that we're doing. Um I want you to think about this. What Ben is building inside of Colossal is a platform and an engine for creating living products. Being able to design using AI and then build living products. Let's talk about the work you're doing in in de-extinction. Yeah, so we thought that if we're going to go build this end-to-end pipeline for synthetic biology and you we would have to develop technologies across computational
[04:02] biology, cellular engineering, genetic cloning, somatic cell nuclear transfer and others, eventually artificial wombs. And we thought that if we're going to do that and build this end-to-end platform, what's the best way to do it? And we thought, well, if you start with de-extinction, right? Because we are facing a massive extinction crisis right now. And if we do that, we were going to have to solve some of the hardest problems in biology. Genotype to phenotype relationships, ancestral state reconstructions, comparative genomics. So there's so many things that we have to solve. And in in
[04:33] that, that allows us to build a system model that could be applied to all types of solutions for biological products. You know, our first biological products company spun out, which was Breaking, which is our plastic degradation company. And so the same system that can bring you a mammoth can also make microbes that can, you know, break the chemical bonds of plastics. >> So so Colossal is a parent company is spinning out a dozen companies, each of which have massive potential. I'll we'll talk about a couple of them here. A couple of them are are super top secret.
[05:04] We can't discuss, but they're as big or bigger. So Breaking is one. So you guys all know the microplastic issue, right? That we have like 5 g of plastic in our brain the size of a plastic teaspoon or credit card. And most of that, 90% is absorbed through your gut. Some of it comes through your skin and and and such. But what Breaking has done is is what? Yeah, we there's actually we we originally thought the original thought was that
[05:34] they discovered an enzyme from a microbe. But after further analysis, we took this discovery at the Wyss Institute, put it in Colossal, started to really understand it. And actually it's a concert of microbes working together, which we were able which was actually even better for us because we were able to essentially understand the enzymes that were being made. We're also understanding the ability to edit each one of the microbes to make different variants of the enzymes to hit different types of plastics. And you know, the the plastic crisis that we're in is terrible not only for human health care but the
[06:04] oceans and and many parts of the environment and others that it's now affecting. But what's interesting is that most plastic treatment and degradation companies are just making smaller plastics. They're just making smaller microplastics and that's not solving the problem in any capacity, right? And so for us, you know, if we just made a company that made smaller plastics, we didn't think that's the right thing. And if we just found a designed a company that could where the chemical process to pre-treat the plastic is worse than the plastic that was also bad thing. And so what's
[06:34] interesting about this discovery is it actually breaks the chemical bonds of the plastic. And so we were able to use directed evolution and supercharge it using our pipeline and some of our editing tools so that not only does it have a larger breadth of plastics it can break down, but it also breaks them down at a much faster rate per surface area. And we are starting to look at the human body and and and >> So I find this fascinating. Imagine a supplement you could take that actually breaks down the bonds of the microplastics in your gut
[07:05] before it gets absorbed. Yeah, cuz the plastic problem is a global problem. Yeah. And it's a and it's not just a problem in the environment and and it's in our food supply, it's in our reproductive tissues, cross the blood brain barrier in some cases. So it it is a pretty big existential problem that we have to solve. And so you're not going to have like, you know, one solution to rule them all. You've got to have a myriad of different solutions. And that's really the goal of of of of breaking is is is how do we break down and get rid of plastics,
[07:35] um, you know, in the world. So when you're how many how many species are you working on bringing back? Uh, so so publicly we've announced the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, the dodo, and the moa. And then we've we've made the dire wolves. Uh, we we will have more dire wolves coming, which we haven't announced. >> By the way, I'm just going to let's get the images in the back over here. Here's the woolly mammoth mice. How cute they are. Yeah, they are they are they are objectively the cutest mice. Uh, and
[08:05] Yeah. Uh, the woolly mammoth. Yep. Um Those are the good ones. And the the dire wolf. Yeah. So, that's Romulus in in the front and Remus in the back. And that and that's George R.R. Martin, which is great. So, we did that was actually one of the fun like there's a lot of cool stuff that we get to work on. But one of the cool things is that like, you know, I think kids of all ages like whether you're like, you know, three or you're you're older. George George R.R. Martin, we did a Zoom with him and and I and I I
[08:36] we got introduced to him. And obviously, if you don't know George R.R. Martin, he he created wrote a song of Ice and Fire and he did um which became Game of Thrones, which popularized dire wolves. Most people thought dire wolves were just mythical creatures including some members of the the Game of Thrones cast, which I won't I won't call them out. But but they did. And what's interesting though is you know, when we you know, I got introduced to George and we put him on Zoom and I just I just let me just show you something. I showed him to him and he
[09:06] just teared up. He's like, this is like he knew exactly what it was, right? He didn't he knew it wasn't a mythical creature. So, it was a it was a pretty cool thing to show that we could take a 73,000 year old skull and make puppies. And we did it in 18 months, which is pretty remarkable. It's extraordinary. So, the de-extinction business people don't you know, I didn't think of it as a massive revenue opportunity when I began. What's the business case in this? And how big I mean, EY did an estimate of
[09:38] the size of the market for you? Can you say? >> they they said through educational content and changing STEM-related content in in education as well as looking at the kind of ancillary effects and they look at like where people are are if you could take dollars and and these would be net new dollars. They wouldn't be taking away from anything. If you take net new dollars that are comparable to things that are extinct but layer on education, the world spends about 12 and 1/2 percent uh
[10:08] 12 and 1/2 percent of global consumers buy something that's extinct every year. Like and so turns out to be like 1.7 trillion dollars. So, which is which is really interesting. So, part of our model and part of our thought process is on the the de-extinction work is not only to subsidize the platform but to help countries do it, which is pretty interesting and we're helping them preserve their species, which actually is a quite lucrative business model as well as helping from an educational perspective and you know, it's so far the feedback's
[10:38] been phenomenal. >> So, just to just to land that plane, you just came back a month ago from Dubai and announced a few major deals there. >> Yeah. Um can you say what those were? Yes, we announced the world's first bio vault. There's not the equivalent of the bio vault in for animals as there are for plants, right? You've got a lot of fragmentation, you've got incredible people and nonprofits and zoos and others working on biobanking meaning they're saving individual pieces of
[11:08] cells and whatnot. But you know, when I naively started this business, I came from software. So, I thought, oh, we'll just plug into the GCP of species, which doesn't exist. So, we had to go we had to go build reference genomes for every single species that we work on and then we said this should be more of a global project. Individual countries should have stake holdership from it. So, we partnered with the UAE as our first partner. There's incredibly diverse fauna in in in in in the region that that that is much of which is is is
[11:39] going extinct. So, we need to protect it. And then we also need to sequence it and and build digital backups and also ensure that that shared with the global scientific community and that should be subsidized by governments, right? And they should take I think we did a lot over about a year we did a good job educating them on the importance of biodiversity, why you need to protect biodiversity, why it's so so important from for for for national pride as well as techno as as well as the impacts from the data from from from these animals. And so, so you don't like you should do it cuz if you like ecosystems, if you
[12:09] don't like ecosystems, you should do it cuz you like animals. If you don't like animals, you should do it because the applications could be helpful to humans. If you don't like humans, then you're probably not the right fit for us to talk to. But, um but but but fundamentally, uh we got them to say agree to to to put hundreds of millions of dollars into uh the world's first bio vaults. And instead of also doing it in, you know, some secret uh back room, you know, cave or underground thing. And there's still redundancy models around that, but do it like in a high-trafficked area. Uh
[12:41] if you're going to spend X dollars, spend X plus Y and and wrap educational content around it. You know, make it available for kids and whatnot, which they did, which they agreed to, which is great. And then and then from that, we're building a living lab. And so, it's a nine-figure initiative for us. It's a nine-figure initiative for uh the country. And um you know, think uh you know, it also builds capabilities in country for countries to also uh protect their biodiversity in in a complete new way while also sharing globally uh the data. Yeah. So,
[13:12] the way I think about this is countries are your customer for um saving their endangered species. >> Mhm. Uh for >> And and eventually it'll be productionized. I like once we are successful with artificial wombs, Yeah. So, you're you're just passing So, the other thing that they're doing besides breaking is they're giving birth, excuse the pun, to an artificial womb company. So, that these mammals and these birds can actually give birth ex utero. Right? So, imagine a future uh in which
[13:44] and and speak about it. You have three of these projects going on. Yeah, so we have we have three They don't work yet. We have three We have three mini moonshots that are big moonshots, right? Uh of of artificial wombs for different animal clades. And, you know, our vision is using biobanking, using synthetic biology, using automation and and robotic process automation with assistance from AI and computer vision and artificial wombs, we could productionize species development. And
[14:14] so, when you have small and we have genetic bottleneck around a certain species or you have long gestations like with the northern Everyone knows about the northern white rhino, right? A lot of people at least know about it. There's two females left. They're functionally extinct. There's low There's low diversity in them. There's a bottleneck because they're related and their 18 embryos are related. But, if you can engineer in genetic diversity from that, both synthetically and from lost specimens, and then productionize it through artificial wombs, the $25
[14:45] million that people are spending a year keeping two animals alive, you know, you could use a piece of that to productionize it and then the rest of that could go to, you know, water, education, other things for the country, right? And so, so I really do think that productionizing endangered species and also helping species adapt at the same curve of which we are changing environments is also something that's going to be needed in the future because evolution is not fast unless it's directed. Um you also purchased the world's top
[15:17] two cloning companies. Yeah, so I love that. Yeah. You you you forget that. Yeah. You just happened to buy that. >> So so most people think of cloning and they're like, I think I've read something about a celebrity cloning their dog, right? Uh and and and we did clone Tom Brady's dog, so I think we're part of that. Uh Tom Brady's an investor along with >> did So we did we do we do kind of like push that narrative to people because it's true. Um so I guess we're part of the problem of when people think about it. But what's interesting is that only like 18 species have ever been cloned
[15:49] and 15 of those have been cloned by the company ViaGen that that we the main one that we bought we bought another one. And most cloning efficiencies, and I think this is really important, most cloning efficiencies is only about 2%. And and ViaGen's was at 78% pretty consistently. Uh which is amazing, right? And so the only endangered species that have ever been cloned on the planet were cloned by ViaGen, right? Uh And so uh things like the black-footed ferret and others that uh you know, are are are going extinct, ViaGen took old cells and were able to
[16:19] uh reanimate them and then clone them. And so I think that, you know, for we we people still love their dogs. Oh and nothing negative about dog cloning. I I people I get asked if I would clone my dogs they're mutts, so I'd probably save more, but I don't know, maybe I'd clone them cuz I love them, but um but but so so we're not taking away the cloning business for consumers. So people love that business, it's a profitable business. We're still supporting that business. But then separately, we're now taking those technologies into country and helping uh uh not just productionize with
[16:49] artificial women with productionize cloning of uh critically endangered species. And we have some big announcements to share with the with the local government on it. Mhm. Okay. So I want you to think about uh the pipeline the platform that Colossal is is being able to use AI and synthetic biology to say we want this phenotype, these genes, these gene copies. You know, I was in a conversation with one of your scientists saying, yes, we're going to a tusk conference, right? I was
[17:21] like, what? And being able to understand, okay, we want we want the snout to be longer, we want the teeth to and being able to use AI to to change which genes, which enhancer sequences, and and be able to like design the living animal that you want. Which is why I said, you know, someone asked you, could you create Pikachu? And you said, yeah, we could probably create Pikachu. I I did get asked that. I got asked that is like the first question on at South by Southwest a few years, and then the rest of the entire
[17:52] panel was about Pokémon. Which which which I was really hopeful to talk about like our vaccine development for elephants and others, but it was mostly about Pokémon. >> Oh my god. >> Yeah. But what I find fascinating is if you can engineer life that way, the missions that the companies that are being built and spun out include company that can create disease-resistant plants or drought-resistant plants. >> disease-resistant animals. >> Or we're spending a lot of time on it
[18:22] because, you know, um leading extinction rates are not just human-caused, but some of them are supercharged by humans for their their existing in nature like diseases. And we get this, you know, a project that I'm very passionate about that we're working on is kitrid. And most people have never heard of kitrid. It's the leading extinction driver right now on the planet in frogs and and and amphibians. And they're not fluffy, so they don't get as much attention. But and but it it it's it's terrible for ecosystems, but it's something that we can solve with genetic engineering,
[18:53] right? And so for us, you know, and not only can we solve the current problem, but we can also create kitrid frogs and salamanders and others and and and and amphibians that are kitrid resistant, which have huge applications. Same thing, you know, we're not currently working on corals. After dinosaurs, it's it's like dinosaurs, corals, and then I guess Pokémon. Dinosaurs, corals, dragons, Pokémon. Everyone's really excited about dragons. And and so we aren't working on dragons and we're not working on Pokémon or corals yet.
[19:24] And so yeah, we get a lot of requests. But but but the coral side is really fascinating and it applies directly to this idea of animals and plants. So we we have an entire group now that's focusing on how do you apply some of the like what are some of the biggest issues from livestock to you know critically endangered species? What are commonalities around these vaccines? What are commonalities around what can be developed to to infer resistance, right? And you know part of it's also amazing cuz you know most people think about Colossal, they only think about
[19:54] the mammoth, they only think about de-extinction. They don't think about the platform like you've talked about which I'm really appreciative that someone's talking about the larger synthetic platform and bio system that we're building. But then also people don't really think about kind of like what the ripples effects on society are. And and you know we don't want to live in a non-biodiverse ecosystem and an environment. We don't want to live in a world where we are changing it faster than nature can catch up. And you know I I I think that synthetic biology especially paired with AI will be
[20:25] you know and I'm sure others in other industries will disagree with this but I believe it will be the the most transformative technology we as humanity ever has. >> Yeah, it's it you know you think of AI as a multi multi-trillion dollar hundred trillion market. >> That's that's why I think we're massively undervalued. >> Yeah, synthetic biology enabled by powered by AI is as big a diverse market. I mean how big is the market for you know engineering disease resistant plants and drought resistant plants and
[20:56] animals? Yeah, I mean it it's hundreds of billions today and that's and it's just not well tracked, right? But if you look at everything that can be applied and what the what the current rate is You have a terrible like a swine flu or bird flu or what not that wipes out a population. You've got so many precautions that also go into these, right? When we when we brought back the dire wolves, we got some feedback that are like, "Oh, people don't like wolves cuz they're going to go kill the cattle." I was like, "The way we raise cattle, the wolves aren't going near it.
[21:26] Like it's gross." And so it just is. It just factually is. And so it's just gross. And so what's interesting though is I think that we with with we do that because of how we've had inbreeding and hybridization and all this over time. I think that if we're smarter about this and and we also have the opportunity to educate governments on things like GMOs, right? Because for a while there was this anti-GMO genetically modified organism movement, right? Because people
[21:57] thought, "Oh, it's going to change your genome and then you're going to if you eat GMO corn, you're going to like I don't know what they I mean I had this conversation with Rob on Zoom earlier today that, you know, GMOs have saved so many lives. They've taken nobody. But it's an educational moment, right? It's like like, you know, there was a season when seat belts were scary for people, right? There was there was literally a time where like cars were like, "No, we can't put seat belts in cars because it's going to make people think cars are bad and or or that cars are dangerous." Like well, cars are dangerous, right? And so it's an opportunity to educate,
[22:28] right? And so we get that. And and if you go look at like, you know, when we were meeting with the Australian government about reintroducing the Tasmanian tiger You know, their law technically the Tasmanian tigers are GMOs. And so they are genetically modified organisms, right? Even if they're 100% genetically identical, they're an amalgamation of 53 different Tasmanian tigers over the course about 300 years. And so what's interesting about that is they're still GMOs. And so for us,
[22:59] we had to then educate the Australian government that like you can't just have an anti-GMO narrative as it relates to the Tasmanian tiger because then you can't rewild this incredible species back into your country because you see it as what you're afraid of in the '80s. Uh there is another dare I say multi-trillion dollar market working on. Uh gene drives. Oh yeah, yeah. Once again, gene drives is a 40% technology problem, 60% marketing problem. Yeah.
[23:30] Can you describe uh what it is? Uh who the customer is and how big it is. So so the invasive species problem is global problem. It's about $5.4 trillion as currently measured. I think it's much larger than that because I don't think it's it's hard to truly quantify. But as the world gets smaller from a commerce perspective, invasive species are just more prevalent, right? And that's everything from what we're seeing you know in
[24:01] Australia with the cane toad, cats, even carps in Australia. Like invasive carp and that sounds weird. I don't know who put them there, but they shouldn't be there. Um and then and people talk about mosquitoes, but but what we're seeing right now in the US and a big problem coming to US. Texas has just declared it as a as national emergency is the screwworm. It's a it's coming up through Honduras and Mexico. It's now in southern Texas. Uh it it is going to decimate our cattle and in bison industry. Um And so you're how do you combat that,
[24:31] right? And so the best way to combat that was you kind of have a couple choices. You can create vaccines and and try to do different things to to the animals themselves, but then that goes directly into USDA and you've got to work through that and there's the anti some anti-GMO movement still that persists from an education perspective. But then separately, an idea that you could create genetically modified screwworms and release them so that as the next generation are produced, they're all male. And so
[25:01] you over time no matter how much they love each other, they're not going to make more. They don't have the same technologies that human humanity has and disposable and disposable thumbs. So they So they they're going to go they They die out. They're going to die out, right? And so So there's people this is terrible but there's this true in New Zealand and Australia and parts of Africa, people are killing animals because they're invasive species. They're killing cats, they're killing possums, they're killing these these these people because they're decimating their local population of
[25:32] small mammals or super meals in Australia or like birds in New Zealand. And you know, that's a That's an animal welfare nightmare. That's a That's a you know, social nightmare. Like who wants to be you know, because people care more about cats and screw worms. And so if you but if you engineer the right gene drives into them and create the right bio control around them, you can have animals and including insects live out their normal lives and then over time you have a decrease decrease in that population humanely. And so you
[26:03] know, people release gene drives in Africa around mosquitoes and everyone freaked out and then they stopped it because they thought you know, oh no, it's bad. But mosquitoes are a part of the food web. I don't think it was necessarily a bad idea to stop it because they were part of the food web. But we know invasive species are not a part of the food web because because of the word invasive. And so So yeah, so so it's a huge problem. We're working with our government and we're working with international governments on it. But that's the That's the magic of AI combined with synthetic
[26:35] biology. Two years ago if you said would you you know, should you be working on bio control and bio containment and gene drives, I would have said well, I didn't really work with I didn't really get into it because I would have I would have thought it didn't really work when it was distributed around mosquitoes. But you know, now it's a $5 trillion problem, right? And and there's not We We have an interesting model to it and some proprietary technologies that makes it, you know, safer than what has ever been dispersed in the wild. And also, we have the ability to roll it back, uh which is
[27:06] which is helpful. How How big is that marketplace? How big How big is the spend on going after invasive species? >> Uh the US is over $500 billion a year. So, in in in the in the economic impact, the spend in in in just just domestically. Just But, I don't know off the top of my head what the spend against it is cuz the the way that it's mostly uh combatted even it is with everything from poisons, like literally poisons. Like, they literally poison the
[27:36] environment as way to get rid of the invasive species. Like, you know, it's it's it's it's like archaic ways of treating cancer, right? And it versus what what we know is here and what is coming. Um it's the same thing is what people are doing in the with the environment. So, poison is one, and then uh for specifically larger animals, they're killing them, poisoning them, trapping them. And it's it's pretty non-humane. Yeah. I I just want you to understand how huge this opportunity is. Uh you know, dozens of day dozen of
[28:07] species to be attacked and cost dozens of >> And And not enough people are focusing. I mean, the good news is compute power, AI, anthropomorphic robots and others people are really focusing on, which is great. I still think like if you go ask like 90% of people that are fluent in synthetic biology and think about genome engineering, I'd say 99% of them will focus only on human health care, which is great, right? But, I'd say that's 99%. But, the same technologies applied to other use
[28:38] cases, I think are even larger economically, um but also have a bigger opportunity to help us. You're focused on creating healthier embryos, reinventing IVF, uh advanced gene editing technologies. I mean, these are all sort of spin-outs that are coming out from this engine that you've created. Yeah. Yeah, so so our artificial wombs don't work yet. Um just full disclosure. Um
[29:08] and we have three projects around that. But what we found is that like, you know, as you break some of these problems down from our first principles perspective and you look at kind of like how would you rethink it, how would you start, and what's interesting is like we are keeping like, you know, I I've got kids now and they're great. And uh and we went through the IVF process and you know, it's a little it's weird and crazy and it's archaic and emotional. And then like this thing that's so precious, you like look at it from like
[29:39] this archaic like grading scale, right? Like this morphological grading scale and it's like, that's that's how we're choosing these things. It's crazy, right? I think it's crazy. I think it's very archaic versus where technology currently is. Um and so so what's interesting is like for us to be successful even long-term with our mammalian-based artificial wombs, there's about nine different There's four core, but nine different core placental types. Um we have to innovate in a couple of different categories. And one of those is just keeping embryos
[30:09] healthier longer, right? And if you look at like how current modern-day IVF clinics work, they've been doing it the same way a long time, right? And what's interesting about that is that um if you look at the uh you look at the data, it's just based on this morphological grade. And what we found is that uh sometimes embryos that are day two that are day three or day five in non-model species uh and in some model species like like mice, uh they they aren't uh they they they look like they're not they wouldn't be the winner
[30:40] of the race uh morphologically at that stage where most humans make their decision, but if you go a little bit longer they actually are the healthiest embryo, which is kind of crazy, right? So, we we as humans are making this decision on the probably one of the most important things in our lives if you go through IVF, with this archaic old system based on this one moment in time and uh uh bad imaging to say the least. So, you do that. But but what we found is that, you know, things will speed up and things will slow down at these different stages. So, even for us to be successful
[31:11] in artificial womb, we had to build a hydrogel and microfluidics device that actually makes the embryos healthier. And we've actually been able to take embryos in non-model species much further than anyone else has in the world in both mice and as well as in in non-model species. Um and it's a lot easier to do it in humans. We're not We don't do it in humans. But that same technology could be applied to uh embryos, and we have a slightly different grading scale that that is proving way more efficient and way more
[31:42] importantly way more accurate in both model and non-model species. And that uh that just So, just that little innovation I think could be pretty transformative to IVF. You know, Pav, um I I I I want to take us to close here, but give me a sense of how fast this field is moving. Uh you know, what you know, the transformations you've experienced over the year or two. Uh and as far as I know, there is no other company out there that's even close to what you have built in terms of
[32:14] production pipeline. Yes. So, obviously I'm biased. Um disclosure. But I >> too. Yeah. Yeah, you have We're both biased. But but I will say objectively, 2 years ago, 3 years ago, we were doing victory laps when we did a couple edits. And I think that's where most people are doing it. We're now doing hundreds of edits at a time. Uh and when we were doing a couple edits, we were getting like 40% efficiency and we're like, that's pretty good. Most people are doing 15. We're We're really smart.
[32:44] But then now we're doing hundreds of edits at 90% efficiency. I think in the coming years that's thousands of edits. And those are Those are not linear repeats, meaning they're all over the genome. They're completely and they're very precise to the point that I would feel comfortable that that technology could be applied to human health care. We're not going to do it, we'd spin it out or license it, right? Because we are pretty myopically focused on biodiversity and de-extinction at at the core. But no one's near that. No No one's even
[33:15] near that. But even two years ago, we thought we were by far the best based on every single standard, which was interesting. I will say that what we're finding also from DNA synthesis, we've now put in at least from what we Unless they're secret, something we haven't seen based on research and based on what we publish and a lot of scientists love to take the victory laps pretty early in in the in the journals. So, based on what we've seen, you know, we we've surpassed the largest delivery by 5x already.
[33:46] I think that's we'll be at 20x before the end of this year. And so, the DNA synthesis large heart delivery and the clustering models that we have are, you know, in very superior. But at the same time, I do think that, you know, I think the part of the reason for that though is because we have taken a product and systems model approach to synthetic biology leveraging AI. Whereas most people are trying to solve one-off point solutions for human health care. So, they have different goals. So,
[34:16] I can understand why they have different ambition levels. But for us to to to be able to to understand genotype to phenotype expression and being able to do it all over the genome, it's just a different set of challenges. But But I think I I I do think in the coming years that um you know, hopefully the models that we are applying and the way we're thinking about it applies broader to synthetic biology. And you're taking these capabilities and spinning out companies uh and
[34:47] >> We want to stay very focused. And so like we're opportunist and we're capitalist, but at the same time we think these these some of these problems are very hard. Um and we want dedicated teams on them, right? And so de-extinction species preservation, we think it's a you know, $10 trillion opportunity, but we think it's also one of the most important things to focus on and we think it's solving the hardest things in biology, but if we say, "Oh, we get a great discovery on plastics and we can spend some resources on it." Then we we invent that here and then we spin
[35:17] it out and we put incredible women and men to then go work on that, right? And then we bring in the right capital and the attention to it. It's a part of the ecosystem. We build intercompany agreements where we share the editing efficiencies and what not that we develop. So it can help them. So so it is a really interesting ecosystem of how we approach this, but you know, fundamentally, you know, I don't ever want to spread ourselves too thin. I want to focus on the platform, focus on biodiversity and de-extinction, but then these you know, bring in women and men that then can go run those. But
[35:47] they're typically seeded by us with the the scientific team internally that built it.
[00:30] plastic. I think every company is should be an AI company or is an AI company. Without AI, we would not be able to do anything that we're doing. What Ben is building inside of Colossal, being able to design using AI and then build living products. >> Our vision is Now, that's a moonshot, ladies and gentlemen. How do you like having Elon as your warm-up act? >> Yeah, that's the greatest thing ever. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's that's pretty awesome,
[01:00] so. >> And he he loves woolly mammoths. >> He does. He does, and he wants Jurassic Park. Yeah. He's not alone. He's not alone. I'm not saying that's for me. I'm just saying that he's not alone. >> I understand that. It's the number one request we get. Yes. Yeah, and then megalodons is two, which is also really weird. Well, megalodons are just cool. I mean, they they littered their teeth all over the ocean floor. They're still scary. I I said they're scary. Jaws times 100. >> enough of the ocean without it. >> Jaws times 100. Yeah. So, as we're going
[01:30] along here, please use your uh Slido app to add questions. So, I want First of all, I've known you now since pretty much the beginning of Colossal. >> Yeah, you were like first text. Yeah. >> First side text, yeah. And I uh am such a fan of you as a CEO first and foremost, and then second, the company. The idea bring back the woolly mammoth have been around for a long time. Um it had been played around in nonprofits and so forth. Uh let me summarize. This man meets
[02:00] George Church, one of the greatest, you know, synthetic biologists, CRISPR, gene editor, entrepreneur, professor at Harvard Medical School. And and you ask him, "What's your favorite pet project?" >> Yeah. I asked him if he had one project, if he could work on one project for the rest of time with unlimited capital, what would it be? He And he didn't hesitate. Like it wasn't like, "Let me think about it. Let me get back to you." And it was just instantly he's like, "I would work to bring back mammoths. I'd rewild them back into the ecosystems, and I'd build technology that could be
[02:30] applied to saving species and also human health care." Like he he just didn't hesitate. So, you jump in. Uh you take the mantle of CEO. I don't know if you were expecting to do that. I I was going to fund it as a side project for at first, but then I thought it was just really interesting. You build a company which goes from zero to $10 billion valuation four years. It's massively undervalued. I I totally agree with you. Yeah, it I love you. Um and it's just it's it's you as the
[03:00] CEO who has done this. You built an extraordinary team. How big is the Thank you so much, Ben. How big is the team now? Uh we have 260 scientists, uh 200 here in the US and 60 in Australia. And a significant number of AI programmers. >> Yeah, exactly. >> You become an AI company. >> Yeah, yeah. We I think every company is it should be an AI company or is an AI company. Uh so, we feel like the synthetic biology part of our work is really interesting. So, we don't So, we So, we don't always like lead with AI, but AI without AI we would not be able
[03:31] to anything that we're doing. Um I want you to think about this. What Ben is building inside of Colossal is a platform and an engine for creating living products. Being able to design using AI and then build living products. Let's talk about the work you're doing in in de-extinction. Yeah, so we thought that if we're going to go build this end-to-end pipeline for synthetic biology and you we would have to develop technologies across computational
[04:02] biology, cellular engineering, genetic cloning, somatic cell nuclear transfer and others, eventually artificial wombs. And we thought that if we're going to do that and build this end-to-end platform, what's the best way to do it? And we thought, well, if you start with de-extinction, right? Because we are facing a massive extinction crisis right now. And if we do that, we were going to have to solve some of the hardest problems in biology. Genotype to phenotype relationships, ancestral state reconstructions, comparative genomics. So there's so many things that we have to solve. And in in
[04:33] that, that allows us to build a system model that could be applied to all types of solutions for biological products. You know, our first biological products company spun out, which was Breaking, which is our plastic degradation company. And so the same system that can bring you a mammoth can also make microbes that can, you know, break the chemical bonds of plastics. >> So so Colossal is a parent company is spinning out a dozen companies, each of which have massive potential. I'll we'll talk about a couple of them here. A couple of them are are super top secret.
[05:04] We can't discuss, but they're as big or bigger. So Breaking is one. So you guys all know the microplastic issue, right? That we have like 5 g of plastic in our brain the size of a plastic teaspoon or credit card. And most of that, 90% is absorbed through your gut. Some of it comes through your skin and and and such. But what Breaking has done is is what? Yeah, we there's actually we we originally thought the original thought was that
[05:34] they discovered an enzyme from a microbe. But after further analysis, we took this discovery at the Wyss Institute, put it in Colossal, started to really understand it. And actually it's a concert of microbes working together, which we were able which was actually even better for us because we were able to essentially understand the enzymes that were being made. We're also understanding the ability to edit each one of the microbes to make different variants of the enzymes to hit different types of plastics. And you know, the the plastic crisis that we're in is terrible not only for human health care but the
[06:04] oceans and and many parts of the environment and others that it's now affecting. But what's interesting is that most plastic treatment and degradation companies are just making smaller plastics. They're just making smaller microplastics and that's not solving the problem in any capacity, right? And so for us, you know, if we just made a company that made smaller plastics, we didn't think that's the right thing. And if we just found a designed a company that could where the chemical process to pre-treat the plastic is worse than the plastic that was also bad thing. And so what's
[06:34] interesting about this discovery is it actually breaks the chemical bonds of the plastic. And so we were able to use directed evolution and supercharge it using our pipeline and some of our editing tools so that not only does it have a larger breadth of plastics it can break down, but it also breaks them down at a much faster rate per surface area. And we are starting to look at the human body and and and >> So I find this fascinating. Imagine a supplement you could take that actually breaks down the bonds of the microplastics in your gut
[07:05] before it gets absorbed. Yeah, cuz the plastic problem is a global problem. Yeah. And it's a and it's not just a problem in the environment and and it's in our food supply, it's in our reproductive tissues, cross the blood brain barrier in some cases. So it it is a pretty big existential problem that we have to solve. And so you're not going to have like, you know, one solution to rule them all. You've got to have a myriad of different solutions. And that's really the goal of of of of breaking is is is how do we break down and get rid of plastics,
[07:35] um, you know, in the world. So when you're how many how many species are you working on bringing back? Uh, so so publicly we've announced the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, the dodo, and the moa. And then we've we've made the dire wolves. Uh, we we will have more dire wolves coming, which we haven't announced. >> By the way, I'm just going to let's get the images in the back over here. Here's the woolly mammoth mice. How cute they are. Yeah, they are they are they are objectively the cutest mice. Uh, and
[08:05] Yeah. Uh, the woolly mammoth. Yep. Um Those are the good ones. And the the dire wolf. Yeah. So, that's Romulus in in the front and Remus in the back. And that and that's George R.R. Martin, which is great. So, we did that was actually one of the fun like there's a lot of cool stuff that we get to work on. But one of the cool things is that like, you know, I think kids of all ages like whether you're like, you know, three or you're you're older. George George R.R. Martin, we did a Zoom with him and and I and I I
[08:36] we got introduced to him. And obviously, if you don't know George R.R. Martin, he he created wrote a song of Ice and Fire and he did um which became Game of Thrones, which popularized dire wolves. Most people thought dire wolves were just mythical creatures including some members of the the Game of Thrones cast, which I won't I won't call them out. But but they did. And what's interesting though is you know, when we you know, I got introduced to George and we put him on Zoom and I just I just let me just show you something. I showed him to him and he
[09:06] just teared up. He's like, this is like he knew exactly what it was, right? He didn't he knew it wasn't a mythical creature. So, it was a it was a pretty cool thing to show that we could take a 73,000 year old skull and make puppies. And we did it in 18 months, which is pretty remarkable. It's extraordinary. So, the de-extinction business people don't you know, I didn't think of it as a massive revenue opportunity when I began. What's the business case in this? And how big I mean, EY did an estimate of
[09:38] the size of the market for you? Can you say? >> they they said through educational content and changing STEM-related content in in education as well as looking at the kind of ancillary effects and they look at like where people are are if you could take dollars and and these would be net new dollars. They wouldn't be taking away from anything. If you take net new dollars that are comparable to things that are extinct but layer on education, the world spends about 12 and 1/2 percent uh
[10:08] 12 and 1/2 percent of global consumers buy something that's extinct every year. Like and so turns out to be like 1.7 trillion dollars. So, which is which is really interesting. So, part of our model and part of our thought process is on the the de-extinction work is not only to subsidize the platform but to help countries do it, which is pretty interesting and we're helping them preserve their species, which actually is a quite lucrative business model as well as helping from an educational perspective and you know, it's so far the feedback's
[10:38] been phenomenal. >> So, just to just to land that plane, you just came back a month ago from Dubai and announced a few major deals there. >> Yeah. Um can you say what those were? Yes, we announced the world's first bio vault. There's not the equivalent of the bio vault in for animals as there are for plants, right? You've got a lot of fragmentation, you've got incredible people and nonprofits and zoos and others working on biobanking meaning they're saving individual pieces of
[11:08] cells and whatnot. But you know, when I naively started this business, I came from software. So, I thought, oh, we'll just plug into the GCP of species, which doesn't exist. So, we had to go we had to go build reference genomes for every single species that we work on and then we said this should be more of a global project. Individual countries should have stake holdership from it. So, we partnered with the UAE as our first partner. There's incredibly diverse fauna in in in in in the region that that that is much of which is is is
[11:39] going extinct. So, we need to protect it. And then we also need to sequence it and and build digital backups and also ensure that that shared with the global scientific community and that should be subsidized by governments, right? And they should take I think we did a lot over about a year we did a good job educating them on the importance of biodiversity, why you need to protect biodiversity, why it's so so important from for for for national pride as well as techno as as well as the impacts from the data from from from these animals. And so, so you don't like you should do it cuz if you like ecosystems, if you
[12:09] don't like ecosystems, you should do it cuz you like animals. If you don't like animals, you should do it because the applications could be helpful to humans. If you don't like humans, then you're probably not the right fit for us to talk to. But, um but but but fundamentally, uh we got them to say agree to to to put hundreds of millions of dollars into uh the world's first bio vaults. And instead of also doing it in, you know, some secret uh back room, you know, cave or underground thing. And there's still redundancy models around that, but do it like in a high-trafficked area. Uh
[12:41] if you're going to spend X dollars, spend X plus Y and and wrap educational content around it. You know, make it available for kids and whatnot, which they did, which they agreed to, which is great. And then and then from that, we're building a living lab. And so, it's a nine-figure initiative for us. It's a nine-figure initiative for uh the country. And um you know, think uh you know, it also builds capabilities in country for countries to also uh protect their biodiversity in in a complete new way while also sharing globally uh the data. Yeah. So,
[13:12] the way I think about this is countries are your customer for um saving their endangered species. >> Mhm. Uh for >> And and eventually it'll be productionized. I like once we are successful with artificial wombs, Yeah. So, you're you're just passing So, the other thing that they're doing besides breaking is they're giving birth, excuse the pun, to an artificial womb company. So, that these mammals and these birds can actually give birth ex utero. Right? So, imagine a future uh in which
[13:44] and and speak about it. You have three of these projects going on. Yeah, so we have we have three They don't work yet. We have three We have three mini moonshots that are big moonshots, right? Uh of of artificial wombs for different animal clades. And, you know, our vision is using biobanking, using synthetic biology, using automation and and robotic process automation with assistance from AI and computer vision and artificial wombs, we could productionize species development. And
[14:14] so, when you have small and we have genetic bottleneck around a certain species or you have long gestations like with the northern Everyone knows about the northern white rhino, right? A lot of people at least know about it. There's two females left. They're functionally extinct. There's low There's low diversity in them. There's a bottleneck because they're related and their 18 embryos are related. But, if you can engineer in genetic diversity from that, both synthetically and from lost specimens, and then productionize it through artificial wombs, the $25
[14:45] million that people are spending a year keeping two animals alive, you know, you could use a piece of that to productionize it and then the rest of that could go to, you know, water, education, other things for the country, right? And so, so I really do think that productionizing endangered species and also helping species adapt at the same curve of which we are changing environments is also something that's going to be needed in the future because evolution is not fast unless it's directed. Um you also purchased the world's top
[15:17] two cloning companies. Yeah, so I love that. Yeah. You you you forget that. Yeah. You just happened to buy that. >> So so most people think of cloning and they're like, I think I've read something about a celebrity cloning their dog, right? Uh and and and we did clone Tom Brady's dog, so I think we're part of that. Uh Tom Brady's an investor along with >> did So we did we do we do kind of like push that narrative to people because it's true. Um so I guess we're part of the problem of when people think about it. But what's interesting is that only like 18 species have ever been cloned
[15:49] and 15 of those have been cloned by the company ViaGen that that we the main one that we bought we bought another one. And most cloning efficiencies, and I think this is really important, most cloning efficiencies is only about 2%. And and ViaGen's was at 78% pretty consistently. Uh which is amazing, right? And so the only endangered species that have ever been cloned on the planet were cloned by ViaGen, right? Uh And so uh things like the black-footed ferret and others that uh you know, are are are going extinct, ViaGen took old cells and were able to
[16:19] uh reanimate them and then clone them. And so I think that, you know, for we we people still love their dogs. Oh and nothing negative about dog cloning. I I people I get asked if I would clone my dogs they're mutts, so I'd probably save more, but I don't know, maybe I'd clone them cuz I love them, but um but but so so we're not taking away the cloning business for consumers. So people love that business, it's a profitable business. We're still supporting that business. But then separately, we're now taking those technologies into country and helping uh uh not just productionize with
[16:49] artificial women with productionize cloning of uh critically endangered species. And we have some big announcements to share with the with the local government on it. Mhm. Okay. So I want you to think about uh the pipeline the platform that Colossal is is being able to use AI and synthetic biology to say we want this phenotype, these genes, these gene copies. You know, I was in a conversation with one of your scientists saying, yes, we're going to a tusk conference, right? I was
[17:21] like, what? And being able to understand, okay, we want we want the snout to be longer, we want the teeth to and being able to use AI to to change which genes, which enhancer sequences, and and be able to like design the living animal that you want. Which is why I said, you know, someone asked you, could you create Pikachu? And you said, yeah, we could probably create Pikachu. I I did get asked that. I got asked that is like the first question on at South by Southwest a few years, and then the rest of the entire
[17:52] panel was about Pokémon. Which which which I was really hopeful to talk about like our vaccine development for elephants and others, but it was mostly about Pokémon. >> Oh my god. >> Yeah. But what I find fascinating is if you can engineer life that way, the missions that the companies that are being built and spun out include company that can create disease-resistant plants or drought-resistant plants. >> disease-resistant animals. >> Or we're spending a lot of time on it
[18:22] because, you know, um leading extinction rates are not just human-caused, but some of them are supercharged by humans for their their existing in nature like diseases. And we get this, you know, a project that I'm very passionate about that we're working on is kitrid. And most people have never heard of kitrid. It's the leading extinction driver right now on the planet in frogs and and and amphibians. And they're not fluffy, so they don't get as much attention. But and but it it it's it's terrible for ecosystems, but it's something that we can solve with genetic engineering,
[18:53] right? And so for us, you know, and not only can we solve the current problem, but we can also create kitrid frogs and salamanders and others and and and and amphibians that are kitrid resistant, which have huge applications. Same thing, you know, we're not currently working on corals. After dinosaurs, it's it's like dinosaurs, corals, and then I guess Pokémon. Dinosaurs, corals, dragons, Pokémon. Everyone's really excited about dragons. And and so we aren't working on dragons and we're not working on Pokémon or corals yet.
[19:24] And so yeah, we get a lot of requests. But but but the coral side is really fascinating and it applies directly to this idea of animals and plants. So we we have an entire group now that's focusing on how do you apply some of the like what are some of the biggest issues from livestock to you know critically endangered species? What are commonalities around these vaccines? What are commonalities around what can be developed to to infer resistance, right? And you know part of it's also amazing cuz you know most people think about Colossal, they only think about
[19:54] the mammoth, they only think about de-extinction. They don't think about the platform like you've talked about which I'm really appreciative that someone's talking about the larger synthetic platform and bio system that we're building. But then also people don't really think about kind of like what the ripples effects on society are. And and you know we don't want to live in a non-biodiverse ecosystem and an environment. We don't want to live in a world where we are changing it faster than nature can catch up. And you know I I I think that synthetic biology especially paired with AI will be
[20:25] you know and I'm sure others in other industries will disagree with this but I believe it will be the the most transformative technology we as humanity ever has. >> Yeah, it's it you know you think of AI as a multi multi-trillion dollar hundred trillion market. >> That's that's why I think we're massively undervalued. >> Yeah, synthetic biology enabled by powered by AI is as big a diverse market. I mean how big is the market for you know engineering disease resistant plants and drought resistant plants and
[20:56] animals? Yeah, I mean it it's hundreds of billions today and that's and it's just not well tracked, right? But if you look at everything that can be applied and what the what the current rate is You have a terrible like a swine flu or bird flu or what not that wipes out a population. You've got so many precautions that also go into these, right? When we when we brought back the dire wolves, we got some feedback that are like, "Oh, people don't like wolves cuz they're going to go kill the cattle." I was like, "The way we raise cattle, the wolves aren't going near it.
[21:26] Like it's gross." And so it just is. It just factually is. And so it's just gross. And so what's interesting though is I think that we with with we do that because of how we've had inbreeding and hybridization and all this over time. I think that if we're smarter about this and and we also have the opportunity to educate governments on things like GMOs, right? Because for a while there was this anti-GMO genetically modified organism movement, right? Because people
[21:57] thought, "Oh, it's going to change your genome and then you're going to if you eat GMO corn, you're going to like I don't know what they I mean I had this conversation with Rob on Zoom earlier today that, you know, GMOs have saved so many lives. They've taken nobody. But it's an educational moment, right? It's like like, you know, there was a season when seat belts were scary for people, right? There was there was literally a time where like cars were like, "No, we can't put seat belts in cars because it's going to make people think cars are bad and or or that cars are dangerous." Like well, cars are dangerous, right? And so it's an opportunity to educate,
[22:28] right? And so we get that. And and if you go look at like, you know, when we were meeting with the Australian government about reintroducing the Tasmanian tiger You know, their law technically the Tasmanian tigers are GMOs. And so they are genetically modified organisms, right? Even if they're 100% genetically identical, they're an amalgamation of 53 different Tasmanian tigers over the course about 300 years. And so what's interesting about that is they're still GMOs. And so for us,
[22:59] we had to then educate the Australian government that like you can't just have an anti-GMO narrative as it relates to the Tasmanian tiger because then you can't rewild this incredible species back into your country because you see it as what you're afraid of in the '80s. Uh there is another dare I say multi-trillion dollar market working on. Uh gene drives. Oh yeah, yeah. Once again, gene drives is a 40% technology problem, 60% marketing problem. Yeah.
[23:30] Can you describe uh what it is? Uh who the customer is and how big it is. So so the invasive species problem is global problem. It's about $5.4 trillion as currently measured. I think it's much larger than that because I don't think it's it's hard to truly quantify. But as the world gets smaller from a commerce perspective, invasive species are just more prevalent, right? And that's everything from what we're seeing you know in
[24:01] Australia with the cane toad, cats, even carps in Australia. Like invasive carp and that sounds weird. I don't know who put them there, but they shouldn't be there. Um and then and people talk about mosquitoes, but but what we're seeing right now in the US and a big problem coming to US. Texas has just declared it as a as national emergency is the screwworm. It's a it's coming up through Honduras and Mexico. It's now in southern Texas. Uh it it is going to decimate our cattle and in bison industry. Um And so you're how do you combat that,
[24:31] right? And so the best way to combat that was you kind of have a couple choices. You can create vaccines and and try to do different things to to the animals themselves, but then that goes directly into USDA and you've got to work through that and there's the anti some anti-GMO movement still that persists from an education perspective. But then separately, an idea that you could create genetically modified screwworms and release them so that as the next generation are produced, they're all male. And so
[25:01] you over time no matter how much they love each other, they're not going to make more. They don't have the same technologies that human humanity has and disposable and disposable thumbs. So they So they they're going to go they They die out. They're going to die out, right? And so So there's people this is terrible but there's this true in New Zealand and Australia and parts of Africa, people are killing animals because they're invasive species. They're killing cats, they're killing possums, they're killing these these these people because they're decimating their local population of
[25:32] small mammals or super meals in Australia or like birds in New Zealand. And you know, that's a That's an animal welfare nightmare. That's a That's a you know, social nightmare. Like who wants to be you know, because people care more about cats and screw worms. And so if you but if you engineer the right gene drives into them and create the right bio control around them, you can have animals and including insects live out their normal lives and then over time you have a decrease decrease in that population humanely. And so you
[26:03] know, people release gene drives in Africa around mosquitoes and everyone freaked out and then they stopped it because they thought you know, oh no, it's bad. But mosquitoes are a part of the food web. I don't think it was necessarily a bad idea to stop it because they were part of the food web. But we know invasive species are not a part of the food web because because of the word invasive. And so So yeah, so so it's a huge problem. We're working with our government and we're working with international governments on it. But that's the That's the magic of AI combined with synthetic
[26:35] biology. Two years ago if you said would you you know, should you be working on bio control and bio containment and gene drives, I would have said well, I didn't really work with I didn't really get into it because I would have I would have thought it didn't really work when it was distributed around mosquitoes. But you know, now it's a $5 trillion problem, right? And and there's not We We have an interesting model to it and some proprietary technologies that makes it, you know, safer than what has ever been dispersed in the wild. And also, we have the ability to roll it back, uh which is
[27:06] which is helpful. How How big is that marketplace? How big How big is the spend on going after invasive species? >> Uh the US is over $500 billion a year. So, in in in the in the economic impact, the spend in in in just just domestically. Just But, I don't know off the top of my head what the spend against it is cuz the the way that it's mostly uh combatted even it is with everything from poisons, like literally poisons. Like, they literally poison the
[27:36] environment as way to get rid of the invasive species. Like, you know, it's it's it's it's like archaic ways of treating cancer, right? And it versus what what we know is here and what is coming. Um it's the same thing is what people are doing in the with the environment. So, poison is one, and then uh for specifically larger animals, they're killing them, poisoning them, trapping them. And it's it's pretty non-humane. Yeah. I I just want you to understand how huge this opportunity is. Uh you know, dozens of day dozen of
[28:07] species to be attacked and cost dozens of >> And And not enough people are focusing. I mean, the good news is compute power, AI, anthropomorphic robots and others people are really focusing on, which is great. I still think like if you go ask like 90% of people that are fluent in synthetic biology and think about genome engineering, I'd say 99% of them will focus only on human health care, which is great, right? But, I'd say that's 99%. But, the same technologies applied to other use
[28:38] cases, I think are even larger economically, um but also have a bigger opportunity to help us. You're focused on creating healthier embryos, reinventing IVF, uh advanced gene editing technologies. I mean, these are all sort of spin-outs that are coming out from this engine that you've created. Yeah. Yeah, so so our artificial wombs don't work yet. Um just full disclosure. Um
[29:08] and we have three projects around that. But what we found is that like, you know, as you break some of these problems down from our first principles perspective and you look at kind of like how would you rethink it, how would you start, and what's interesting is like we are keeping like, you know, I I've got kids now and they're great. And uh and we went through the IVF process and you know, it's a little it's weird and crazy and it's archaic and emotional. And then like this thing that's so precious, you like look at it from like
[29:39] this archaic like grading scale, right? Like this morphological grading scale and it's like, that's that's how we're choosing these things. It's crazy, right? I think it's crazy. I think it's very archaic versus where technology currently is. Um and so so what's interesting is like for us to be successful even long-term with our mammalian-based artificial wombs, there's about nine different There's four core, but nine different core placental types. Um we have to innovate in a couple of different categories. And one of those is just keeping embryos
[30:09] healthier longer, right? And if you look at like how current modern-day IVF clinics work, they've been doing it the same way a long time, right? And what's interesting about that is that um if you look at the uh you look at the data, it's just based on this morphological grade. And what we found is that uh sometimes embryos that are day two that are day three or day five in non-model species uh and in some model species like like mice, uh they they aren't uh they they they look like they're not they wouldn't be the winner
[30:40] of the race uh morphologically at that stage where most humans make their decision, but if you go a little bit longer they actually are the healthiest embryo, which is kind of crazy, right? So, we we as humans are making this decision on the probably one of the most important things in our lives if you go through IVF, with this archaic old system based on this one moment in time and uh uh bad imaging to say the least. So, you do that. But but what we found is that, you know, things will speed up and things will slow down at these different stages. So, even for us to be successful
[31:11] in artificial womb, we had to build a hydrogel and microfluidics device that actually makes the embryos healthier. And we've actually been able to take embryos in non-model species much further than anyone else has in the world in both mice and as well as in in non-model species. Um and it's a lot easier to do it in humans. We're not We don't do it in humans. But that same technology could be applied to uh embryos, and we have a slightly different grading scale that that is proving way more efficient and way more
[31:42] importantly way more accurate in both model and non-model species. And that uh that just So, just that little innovation I think could be pretty transformative to IVF. You know, Pav, um I I I I want to take us to close here, but give me a sense of how fast this field is moving. Uh you know, what you know, the transformations you've experienced over the year or two. Uh and as far as I know, there is no other company out there that's even close to what you have built in terms of
[32:14] production pipeline. Yes. So, obviously I'm biased. Um disclosure. But I >> too. Yeah. Yeah, you have We're both biased. But but I will say objectively, 2 years ago, 3 years ago, we were doing victory laps when we did a couple edits. And I think that's where most people are doing it. We're now doing hundreds of edits at a time. Uh and when we were doing a couple edits, we were getting like 40% efficiency and we're like, that's pretty good. Most people are doing 15. We're We're really smart.
[32:44] But then now we're doing hundreds of edits at 90% efficiency. I think in the coming years that's thousands of edits. And those are Those are not linear repeats, meaning they're all over the genome. They're completely and they're very precise to the point that I would feel comfortable that that technology could be applied to human health care. We're not going to do it, we'd spin it out or license it, right? Because we are pretty myopically focused on biodiversity and de-extinction at at the core. But no one's near that. No No one's even
[33:15] near that. But even two years ago, we thought we were by far the best based on every single standard, which was interesting. I will say that what we're finding also from DNA synthesis, we've now put in at least from what we Unless they're secret, something we haven't seen based on research and based on what we publish and a lot of scientists love to take the victory laps pretty early in in the in the journals. So, based on what we've seen, you know, we we've surpassed the largest delivery by 5x already.
[33:46] I think that's we'll be at 20x before the end of this year. And so, the DNA synthesis large heart delivery and the clustering models that we have are, you know, in very superior. But at the same time, I do think that, you know, I think the part of the reason for that though is because we have taken a product and systems model approach to synthetic biology leveraging AI. Whereas most people are trying to solve one-off point solutions for human health care. So, they have different goals. So,
[34:16] I can understand why they have different ambition levels. But for us to to to be able to to understand genotype to phenotype expression and being able to do it all over the genome, it's just a different set of challenges. But But I think I I I do think in the coming years that um you know, hopefully the models that we are applying and the way we're thinking about it applies broader to synthetic biology. And you're taking these capabilities and spinning out companies uh and
[34:47] >> We want to stay very focused. And so like we're opportunist and we're capitalist, but at the same time we think these these some of these problems are very hard. Um and we want dedicated teams on them, right? And so de-extinction species preservation, we think it's a you know, $10 trillion opportunity, but we think it's also one of the most important things to focus on and we think it's solving the hardest things in biology, but if we say, "Oh, we get a great discovery on plastics and we can spend some resources on it." Then we we invent that here and then we spin
[35:17] it out and we put incredible women and men to then go work on that, right? And then we bring in the right capital and the attention to it. It's a part of the ecosystem. We build intercompany agreements where we share the editing efficiencies and what not that we develop. So it can help them. So so it is a really interesting ecosystem of how we approach this, but you know, fundamentally, you know, I don't ever want to spread ourselves too thin. I want to focus on the platform, focus on biodiversity and de-extinction, but then these you know, bring in women and men that then can go run those. But
[35:47] they're typically seeded by us with the the scientific team internally that built it.