WEBVTT - The Story: From Woolly Mice to De-Extinction w/ Ben Lamm

0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:16.480
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to tech Stuff. This is the story. Each week

0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.200
<v Speaker 1>on Wednesdays, we bring you an in depth interview with

0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:21.319
<v Speaker 1>someone who has a front row seat to the most

0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:26.320
<v Speaker 1>fascinating things happening in tech today. We're joined by Ben Lamb,

0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:31.840
<v Speaker 1>an entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences.

0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.000
<v Speaker 1>By now, you might have heard of the company's wooly mice,

0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.800
<v Speaker 1>fluffy creatures with the same type of fur as the

0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:43.680
<v Speaker 1>extinct wooly mammoth. Or maybe you saw the April issue

0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.279
<v Speaker 1>of Time magazine, the one with a white direwolf on

0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.239
<v Speaker 1>the cover, a type of wolf that hasn't walked the

0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.640
<v Speaker 1>Earth in over ten thousand years. It might sound like sorcery,

0:00:55.000 --> 0:01:02.120
<v Speaker 1>but Colossal Biosciences actually genetically engineered these animals ancient DNA,

0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.920
<v Speaker 1>and while resurrecting extinct animals is pretty cool on its own,

0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:10.200
<v Speaker 1>our guest today, Ben Lamb, wanted to start the company

0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:13.760
<v Speaker 1>because of what he believed the extinction could do for

0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.200
<v Speaker 1>our current ecosystem and the future of science.

0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.160
<v Speaker 2>I learned in this process that in the next twenty

0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.039
<v Speaker 2>five years, half of species will either be extinct or

0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:25.839
<v Speaker 2>be at least threatened with extinction. So I thought maybe

0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:27.800
<v Speaker 2>there was an opportunity to build a company that we

0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.800
<v Speaker 2>could develop tools to help conservation, hopefully inspire kids and

0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.440
<v Speaker 2>give people excited about science through something that was like

0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:36.640
<v Speaker 2>truly a moonshot and like the Apollo Days.

0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.000
<v Speaker 1>CEO Ben Lamb has a background in tech entrepreneurship, but

0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:45.400
<v Speaker 1>became interested in the extinction after meeting the renowned geneticist

0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:50.680
<v Speaker 1>George Church and having a pivotal experience in his own life.

0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:53.680
<v Speaker 1>Ben Lamb, thank you so much for joining on tech stuff.

0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:55.040
<v Speaker 3>Hey, thanks so much for having me.

0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:57.200
<v Speaker 1>So we're going to talk about Willy mammoths and Willie

0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:00.880
<v Speaker 1>mice and dire wolves and gene editing and fa but

0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.440
<v Speaker 1>I kind of want to start with you and your

0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:09.480
<v Speaker 1>drive to create arguably the most engaging, live scientific experiment

0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:13.720
<v Speaker 1>ongoing in the world. So my question is why this

0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.240
<v Speaker 1>science project and why this mission for you?

0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:20.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so my background is in just building technology companies

0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.480
<v Speaker 2>with much smarter women and men than me, and I

0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.359
<v Speaker 2>met this guy, George Church. He's the head of genetics

0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:29.320
<v Speaker 2>at Harvard and he'd actually invented a lot of these

0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.520
<v Speaker 2>core technologies. So he's one of the first people to

0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.600
<v Speaker 2>ever use Crisper and some of these advanced technologies in

0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:38.040
<v Speaker 2>genome engineering, and I was really fascinated about the intersection

0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.880
<v Speaker 2>of synthetic biology, access to compute and AI and really

0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.519
<v Speaker 2>being able to direct life and be able to engineer

0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:47.640
<v Speaker 2>life and be able to evolve life.

0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:47.880
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.200
<v Speaker 2>And one of my employees, my chief strategy officer, was fantastic.

0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:53.959
<v Speaker 2>His name was Greg. He passed away of a sudden

0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.240
<v Speaker 2>cardiac event. And it causes you to really kind of

0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.880
<v Speaker 2>you reconsider your priorities, and especially when with someone that

0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.320
<v Speaker 2>you've known for fifteen years. You're flying back from NASA

0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:07.120
<v Speaker 2>one night joking about UFOs and the next morning you're

0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.760
<v Speaker 2>talking to his wife and widow right, and so you

0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:15.680
<v Speaker 2>know those moments where mortality and reality hits you. I

0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.560
<v Speaker 2>think you know our major inflection points. So I thought

0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:20.799
<v Speaker 2>I would jump into the weird world of biology.

0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.000
<v Speaker 1>You had that moment of how much time might I

0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:25.760
<v Speaker 1>have left? And the time I do have left is

0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:28.680
<v Speaker 1>more of a blessing than I may have considered. Therefore,

0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.160
<v Speaker 1>how do I want to spend it? I remember, I

0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:35.080
<v Speaker 1>think before twenty twenty, reading about George Church and reading

0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.120
<v Speaker 1>about the Wooly memmoth project and being fascinated by it,

0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.320
<v Speaker 1>but how did you catch this de extinction bug? In

0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:43.520
<v Speaker 1>other words, going not just from the mammoth but to

0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:46.080
<v Speaker 1>this larger project you're working on mount.

0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.000
<v Speaker 2>So I had met George and was fascinated by the

0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:52.600
<v Speaker 2>fact that this person that's at the top of their

0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:54.400
<v Speaker 2>field had told.

0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:56.320
<v Speaker 3>Me that we have all the tools to do this.

0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:57.120
<v Speaker 3>This is really a.

0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.720
<v Speaker 2>Function of funding, and if we could bring the right

0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.360
<v Speaker 2>people together with the right focus and the right funding,

0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.200
<v Speaker 2>we had the technologies to make extinction a thing of

0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.000
<v Speaker 2>the past. But over time, if we can make them

0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:14.520
<v Speaker 2>more efficient, well then that has massive ripples into conservation,

0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:15.720
<v Speaker 2>into human healthcare.

0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:16.680
<v Speaker 3>So he told me that.

0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:18.719
<v Speaker 2>In twenty nineteen, I just kind of went back to

0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:20.520
<v Speaker 2>my day job and I was interested.

0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:22.679
<v Speaker 3>Maybe I'd fund his lab, maybe I'd work with him.

0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.720
<v Speaker 2>But then after I went through this introspection period, I

0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:28.840
<v Speaker 2>was like, well, worst case scenario, this is a massive failure,

0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.479
<v Speaker 2>and I'll just go back to making software. And then

0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:34.800
<v Speaker 2>what George was right about was there are no real

0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:38.599
<v Speaker 2>science gits. We have all of the tech in some

0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.560
<v Speaker 2>form or fashion, and so we really these are in

0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.880
<v Speaker 2>some cases innovation problems. And I think that with AI

0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:49.440
<v Speaker 2>and automation, we're seeing scientific discoveries slowly moving from scientific

0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:53.919
<v Speaker 2>experiment to scientific engineering. So I think that science and

0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:56.840
<v Speaker 2>engineering are going to continue to blur and get closer

0:04:56.880 --> 0:04:59.400
<v Speaker 2>and closer together in the next five to ten years.

0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.240
<v Speaker 1>What do you actually mean by the extinction? And was

0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:06.360
<v Speaker 1>there an accepted definition or if you kind of created

0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:08.560
<v Speaker 1>to concept it on with George.

0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:10.560
<v Speaker 2>So, the extinction is a made up word, right, like

0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:12.400
<v Speaker 2>a stinction of the word the extinction. You know, we

0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.800
<v Speaker 2>learned from Jurassic Park and whatnot. It's become one of

0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.599
<v Speaker 2>these these just part of the nomenclature. And up until

0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:24.800
<v Speaker 2>this year, Wikipedia defined the extinction as engineering a species

0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.479
<v Speaker 2>to look like an extinct species, or cloning an extinct species. Well,

0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:30.920
<v Speaker 2>I don't like to say things are impossible, but it

0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.200
<v Speaker 2>doesn't seem like it is or will be possible to

0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.200
<v Speaker 2>clone an extinct species because you don't have living cells.

0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.159
<v Speaker 2>You're not just going to take nucleus from one cell

0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:42.279
<v Speaker 2>and put it into another cell because there are no

0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:43.560
<v Speaker 2>living cells.

0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.080
<v Speaker 3>For extinct organism that's been dead for quite some time.

0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:48.640
<v Speaker 2>Right, we thought that just engineering something that look like

0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:51.839
<v Speaker 2>an extinct species is kind of like phoning it in,

0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:54.160
<v Speaker 2>and so we came up with this idea that the

0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:56.800
<v Speaker 2>definition of the extinction was flawed, and so we really

0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:59.960
<v Speaker 2>wanted to focus on how do we bring back loss diversity,

0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.120
<v Speaker 2>lost genes, how do we ensure that it has the

0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:06.360
<v Speaker 2>core phenotypes or physical attributes, but are also are there

0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:07.800
<v Speaker 2>opportunities for enhancements?

0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:12.200
<v Speaker 1>Right, So I guess you're thinking beyond using genetic engineering

0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:17.240
<v Speaker 1>to make animals that look like extinct animals, but actually

0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:22.200
<v Speaker 1>trying to bring back extinct genes or re express extinct genes,

0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:25.159
<v Speaker 1>and then in turn trying to see if any of

0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.040
<v Speaker 1>them can be used to solve genetic problems that are

0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:29.200
<v Speaker 1>found in species today.

0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.200
<v Speaker 2>So I'll give you one example of that is like EEHV,

0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.760
<v Speaker 2>which is the number one killer of elephants, specifically Asian elephants,

0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:37.960
<v Speaker 2>but it kills about twenty percent of elephants every year.

0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:39.279
<v Speaker 3>More than poaching, more than anything.

0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.279
<v Speaker 2>We're working with Baylor College of Medicine and others to

0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.280
<v Speaker 2>actually eradicate this disease, and we've actually have a MR

0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:48.919
<v Speaker 2>and A based vaccine that's being tested right now in

0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:53.040
<v Speaker 2>elephants and is conferring resistance, which is awesome for existing elephants.

0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.960
<v Speaker 2>But here's the deal, mammas are actually closely related to

0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.720
<v Speaker 2>Asian elephants. They are African elephants, and they were susceptible

0:06:59.720 --> 0:06:59.960
<v Speaker 2>to eat.

0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:01.039
<v Speaker 3>We know that.

0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:05.400
<v Speaker 2>And so if you can engineer in resilience at EEHV,

0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:07.120
<v Speaker 2>why wouldn't you.

0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.080
<v Speaker 1>I really want to talk about the wooly mice and

0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:12.960
<v Speaker 1>the dire wolves. I was at south By Southwest this

0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.400
<v Speaker 1>year as you were, and I think the release of

0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.480
<v Speaker 1>the wooly mouse. I've never seen a conference being taken

0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:21.800
<v Speaker 1>by storm, or not just a conference, I mean the

0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.680
<v Speaker 1>whole internet, frankly, as the release of.

0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:27.200
<v Speaker 3>The wooly mouse, I think you saw the direwolves, and.

0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:29.680
<v Speaker 1>Then and then you saw the dire wolves, which, yeah,

0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:31.960
<v Speaker 1>which were an apex predator. When it came to hype

0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:34.680
<v Speaker 1>that said, it's a little uncanny to talk about animals

0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:38.480
<v Speaker 1>as though their product releases. But hold my hand and

0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.560
<v Speaker 1>walk me through this. You guys are trying to make

0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.560
<v Speaker 1>the wooly mammoth, a species that existed and then went

0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:48.320
<v Speaker 1>extinct thousands of years ago, and in that process you

0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.040
<v Speaker 1>make an entirely new creature, which is the wooly mouse.

0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:54.440
<v Speaker 1>Why mice? Why not just work on the mammoth?

0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.160
<v Speaker 3>So one we wanted to test our Indian pipeline two.

0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:00.320
<v Speaker 2>We want to ensure that if your I didner find

0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:03.600
<v Speaker 2>phenotypes or physical attributes that you believe will be engineered

0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:05.920
<v Speaker 2>that have been lost to time in the Asian elephant lineage,

0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.120
<v Speaker 2>but engineered back into that lineage from the mammoth. And

0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:13.040
<v Speaker 2>you want to confer cold tolerance, hair color, hair texture,

0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.280
<v Speaker 2>hair thickness, wave length. Your three options, or you make

0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.440
<v Speaker 2>a mammoth, right, But going back to an ethics perspective,

0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:21.600
<v Speaker 2>like if you have better ways to test it, let's

0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:22.280
<v Speaker 2>test it there.

0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.080
<v Speaker 3>The second is you grow organoids, which this sounds.

0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:28.720
<v Speaker 2>Frankenstein, It's super cool, though, is we actually create stem cells,

0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.280
<v Speaker 2>program them into organoids, and we actually grow mammoth hair

0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:36.040
<v Speaker 2>in little follicles and dishes, so it's alive, so we.

0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:36.640
<v Speaker 3>Know it's working.

0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:39.000
<v Speaker 2>But that's still not a complete animal model, right, And

0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:43.199
<v Speaker 2>so taking that same into end pipeline, applying it from

0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:48.400
<v Speaker 2>the specific variance from mammoth to the mouse specific variance.

0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:50.520
<v Speaker 1>In terms of the gene that expresses as hey, you

0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.000
<v Speaker 1>can mention the mammoth headed gene to the mouse head.

0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.040
<v Speaker 2>Gene exactly exactly when we did this for the mouse,

0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:58.720
<v Speaker 2>It's like there's two hundred million years of genetic divergence

0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.520
<v Speaker 2>between an ELpH in the mouse, and so I believe

0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:06.440
<v Speaker 2>it's irresponsible and unethical to just shove it in, cross

0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.200
<v Speaker 2>your fingers and see what happens, right, because why would

0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.240
<v Speaker 2>we do that, right, Because we're really trying to test

0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.640
<v Speaker 2>if the pathways and the edits express the phenotypes or

0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.320
<v Speaker 2>physical attributes. Right, So we did an extra step of

0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.079
<v Speaker 2>like mapping all to mouse, and what we found was that,

0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.960
<v Speaker 2>you know, in twenty days versus twenty two months, that

0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:26.400
<v Speaker 2>all of the hair phenotypes.

0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.680
<v Speaker 1>Twenty days versus twenty two months because the gestation period

0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.200
<v Speaker 1>of the mouse versus an elephant correct correct.

0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.240
<v Speaker 2>And we found that we get healthy wooly mice with

0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:38.480
<v Speaker 2>the exact predicted phenotype that all of our modeling showed.

0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.559
<v Speaker 2>And so it's a much faster, easier, and more ethical

0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.599
<v Speaker 2>way to test. And then the only unintended consequence is

0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.600
<v Speaker 2>that they were objectively cute and they took the Internet

0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.280
<v Speaker 2>by storm. We thought it was interesting and we thought

0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.680
<v Speaker 2>it proved our endo end process works really well.

0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:56.800
<v Speaker 3>We did in one month, by the way, which I

0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:58.720
<v Speaker 3>think no one seemed to write or care about.

0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.840
<v Speaker 2>But that's amazing and most people at the time, we

0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.439
<v Speaker 2>made eight edits and seven genes. And what most people

0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:07.840
<v Speaker 2>think is that sometimes the number like eight doesn't sound

0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.439
<v Speaker 2>like a big deal, but when you're dealing with genome engineering,

0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.360
<v Speaker 2>and most people were making an edit in one generation

0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.559
<v Speaker 2>of a mouse, making an edit in the next generation

0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.800
<v Speaker 2>of mouse, and so that they were stacking eight generations

0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.520
<v Speaker 2>to get to eight edits, right, And so we did

0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.440
<v Speaker 2>it all with one multiplex delivery in one shot with

0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:30.800
<v Speaker 2>nearly one hundred percent efficiency, which is insane, But we

0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.400
<v Speaker 2>did it because we wanted to really do three things.

0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.360
<v Speaker 2>One is, we built this end the end process right

0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:40.760
<v Speaker 2>of taking competitional analysis from ancient DNA, identifying genes, engineering

0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:44.240
<v Speaker 2>those genes, and doing a combination of either editing those

0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:48.199
<v Speaker 2>in the actual embryos themselves or somatic some onny code transfer.

0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.120
<v Speaker 3>Where we edit the cell and then move the nucleus.

0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.199
<v Speaker 2>And then we wanted to test our monoclonal screening process

0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.280
<v Speaker 2>at the end to ensure that all the sequencing. So

0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:59.400
<v Speaker 2>Colossal does a lot of extra steps. Probably the most

0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:00.680
<v Speaker 2>people would in our.

0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:03.920
<v Speaker 1>Boat this just to make sure you don't make Frankenstein

0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.720
<v Speaker 1>woody mice switch it, which have horrible illnesses and which

0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:08.920
<v Speaker 1>are in pain and one of those things exactly.

0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:10.480
<v Speaker 3>So none of these technologies are perfect.

0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:10.760
<v Speaker 1>Right.

0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.080
<v Speaker 2>You know, before the Wooly Mouse and before the Dire Wolf,

0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.960
<v Speaker 2>people were making like one, maybe two edits at a

0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:19.600
<v Speaker 2>time that weren't what are called linear repeats.

0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:21.240
<v Speaker 3>We neither the same edit over and over again.

0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.400
<v Speaker 2>Right, there's thousands of those, but those are just copies

0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:25.440
<v Speaker 2>of the same thing. Right, But making a lot of

0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.560
<v Speaker 2>edits all over the genome with ninety plus percent efficiency

0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.760
<v Speaker 2>and not creating what's called off target effects or unintended

0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.080
<v Speaker 2>consequences is what you're talking about. It's really really hard,

0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:37.800
<v Speaker 2>and that's where I think Colossal is really succeeding. But

0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.920
<v Speaker 2>still you want to screen, and so we sequence, and

0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:42.400
<v Speaker 2>so think about like sequencing is.

0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:43.200
<v Speaker 3>Reading the DNA.

0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.840
<v Speaker 2>We read the DNA at every step and that's insanely

0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.720
<v Speaker 2>computationally heavy and it's exanely costly.

0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:50.800
<v Speaker 3>But here's what we know.

0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.839
<v Speaker 2>The embryos that we transfer, we know one hundred percent

0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.240
<v Speaker 2>of them are healthy. And so we're certified by American

0:11:57.280 --> 0:11:59.800
<v Speaker 2>Humane Society. And we don't do it because that certification,

0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:01.640
<v Speaker 2>but we do it because we care about conservation.

0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:02.920
<v Speaker 3>We care about animal welfare.

0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.840
<v Speaker 2>And so the reason why we have successfully birth, you know,

0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:10.719
<v Speaker 2>animals with no unintended consequences, is because we do it

0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.760
<v Speaker 2>before the editing, during the editing, after the after the

0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:14.640
<v Speaker 2>embryo creation.

0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:16.480
<v Speaker 3>And I think that's really really important.

0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:20.840
<v Speaker 1>But practically functionally, how much closer to the wooly mice

0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.079
<v Speaker 1>take you to the wooly mammoth? Have they knocked off?

0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:25.600
<v Speaker 1>Three months? Six months a year?

0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.760
<v Speaker 3>So they don't speed up anything. They're just a validator.

0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:32.199
<v Speaker 2>It's like, oh, okay, well this is behaving exactly as

0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:36.760
<v Speaker 2>we were predicting, and so this is a validation step.

0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.320
<v Speaker 2>So we're all the edits that we made the woy mouse.

0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:43.120
<v Speaker 2>We've already made the mammoth equivalent of them in Asian

0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:45.920
<v Speaker 2>elephant cels. We just haven't taken them to term right,

0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:50.240
<v Speaker 2>So I'd say less likely that it will speed up

0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.480
<v Speaker 2>the project, more likely that it means that we aren't

0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:54.880
<v Speaker 2>getting the project wrong.

0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.880
<v Speaker 1>When we come back. What Ben says is the first

0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:16.360
<v Speaker 1>the extinct species, the dire wolf, stay with us. So

0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.680
<v Speaker 1>the Woolli mice were a validator, but the dire wolves were,

0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.560
<v Speaker 1>at least as far as you're concerned, the first the

0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:24.480
<v Speaker 1>extinct species.

0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.520
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I think the dire wolves were the first extinct

0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:31.880
<v Speaker 2>species brought back. The will mice never existed, so we

0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.079
<v Speaker 2>can't classify them in that category.

0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:36.880
<v Speaker 1>And the dire wolf this species that went extinct about

0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.160
<v Speaker 1>ten thousand years ago. I guess it was kind of

0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:42.559
<v Speaker 1>reintroduced into the popular imagination, at least by George R. R.

0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:44.960
<v Speaker 1>Martin in the Game of Thrones series, which I know

0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.880
<v Speaker 1>you're a fan of. But can you tell me what

0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:52.280
<v Speaker 1>it was like to see these die wolves coming into existence,

0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:54.000
<v Speaker 1>being born? Holding them?

0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.319
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it was highly emotional.

0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.439
<v Speaker 2>So I was on FaceTime while they were being born,

0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.040
<v Speaker 2>so I was actually in London.

0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:03.920
<v Speaker 3>I remember exactly where I was.

0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.079
<v Speaker 2>Your hearts palpitating, You feel like like you want everything

0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:08.280
<v Speaker 2>because everything healthy is.

0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:09.920
<v Speaker 3>I was like, it's like when you have your first child,

0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:11.440
<v Speaker 3>was like to they have the right feet.

0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.200
<v Speaker 2>And when they came out, they were white, which you

0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:17.640
<v Speaker 2>know wolf when they're born they're all black or gray

0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.440
<v Speaker 2>dark gray, like super dark gray, so that was an

0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:21.240
<v Speaker 2>early indicator.

0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:22.480
<v Speaker 3>They were much larger.

0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:26.680
<v Speaker 2>They're about forty percent larger than normal wolf puppies. So

0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:31.440
<v Speaker 2>I didn't because I'm not an animal veterinarian, like, I

0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:35.720
<v Speaker 2>had no value add I actually waited until they were

0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:37.240
<v Speaker 2>about five weeks.

0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:38.360
<v Speaker 3>And then I got to see them.

0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:40.920
<v Speaker 2>So and when I saw them the first time, I

0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.000
<v Speaker 2>got I mean, I still do, I get chill bumped,

0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:43.760
<v Speaker 2>I teared up.

0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:44.840
<v Speaker 3>It's very very emotional.

0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:47.960
<v Speaker 2>And what's been interesting is even people that aren't as

0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:53.560
<v Speaker 2>attached specifically to the Extinction or specifically to Colossal, they

0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:58.240
<v Speaker 2>have a very similar response. And it awakened something in you.

0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:02.360
<v Speaker 2>The importance of the moment isn't lost on you. I

0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:06.000
<v Speaker 2>remembered one of the first people I showed the how

0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:08.280
<v Speaker 2>video that became very very popular on the internet.

0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.240
<v Speaker 1>You're talking, of course, about the YouTube video of the

0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.520
<v Speaker 1>die Wolf Pops Howling. Who did you show it to?

0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:15.480
<v Speaker 3>Peter Jackson.

0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:17.880
<v Speaker 2>Peter's a dear friend and he's director for Lord of

0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.720
<v Speaker 2>the Rings and he's an investor in Colossal, And so

0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:23.800
<v Speaker 2>I was in his living room with his partner fran

0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.960
<v Speaker 2>I hooked up old school like HDMI to my laptop.

0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:29.720
<v Speaker 2>I said, I got to show you something, and I

0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.600
<v Speaker 2>showed it to him. He was overwhelmed. It's a very

0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.000
<v Speaker 2>very surreal experience.

0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:40.200
<v Speaker 1>I can only imagine. Ben, this is the Tech Stuff podcast.

0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:41.760
<v Speaker 1>So I just want to make sure, I do have

0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.280
<v Speaker 1>the tech right. I actually wrote down seven bullet points

0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:48.560
<v Speaker 1>for myself about the the extinction process, which includes the

0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.600
<v Speaker 1>use of generating tools like CRISPA. But I wonder if

0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:53.360
<v Speaker 1>you could sort of let me know if I've got

0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.920
<v Speaker 1>the steps right. Starting with step one, which is you

0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.800
<v Speaker 1>go out and find as much DNA as you can

0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:01.640
<v Speaker 1>of an extinct species.

0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.320
<v Speaker 2>Yes, and that can come in the form of some

0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.320
<v Speaker 2>researchers already have it on their hard drives, sometimes from

0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:08.680
<v Speaker 2>museum specimens.

0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.200
<v Speaker 3>Sometimes it's expeditions.

0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:11.800
<v Speaker 1>Digging through permafrost.

0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:12.880
<v Speaker 3>I mean, yeah, you go.

0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:16.040
<v Speaker 2>Into the permafrosts, you go into caves, but it's really

0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.520
<v Speaker 2>a global collaborative effort. It's you're in the sub basement

0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.960
<v Speaker 2>of a museum talking to a researcher at some university

0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.720
<v Speaker 2>that's sent their whole life sequencing it.

0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.600
<v Speaker 3>To You're actually out in a cave or in the

0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:30.120
<v Speaker 3>Arctic and whatnot. It's pretty cool.

0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.000
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So now I'm going to go through steps two

0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:37.400
<v Speaker 1>to five. You take the sample from the field back

0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:40.920
<v Speaker 1>to the lab and sequence the DNA. Then you cross

0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.760
<v Speaker 1>reference to DNA with other samples from the extinct species.

0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.880
<v Speaker 1>Then you build as complete a genome as you can

0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:53.120
<v Speaker 1>of the extinct species using AI, and then you cross

0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.240
<v Speaker 1>reference with that genome with all living animals to find

0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:57.440
<v Speaker 1>the closest living relative.

0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.640
<v Speaker 2>That is correct, But on that last parts to those

0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:03.360
<v Speaker 2>don't exist either, so you actually have to go build

0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.399
<v Speaker 2>the reference genome for the closest living relative. There's not

0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.720
<v Speaker 2>like a database of all life on Earth.

0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:11.880
<v Speaker 1>So you have a hypothesis about what the closest living

0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.000
<v Speaker 1>relative might be and then go and build that genome

0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.840
<v Speaker 1>in parallel. Then yeah, okay, yeah, Then you identify the

0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.280
<v Speaker 1>key genes that you need to edit in the living

0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:24.320
<v Speaker 1>species to make it genetically closer to the extinct.

0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:25.360
<v Speaker 3>Species exactly right.

0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.000
<v Speaker 1>Then you use CRISP gene editing to edit the embryo

0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:30.359
<v Speaker 1>of the living species.

0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.040
<v Speaker 3>So this is where it kind of forks a little bit.

0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.040
<v Speaker 2>So we use a combination of I think it's better

0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.679
<v Speaker 2>to classify it as genome engineering tools. One of the

0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:40.960
<v Speaker 2>things that colossals I think done a really good job

0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.160
<v Speaker 2>of is figuring out, we actually built an AI model

0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:45.480
<v Speaker 2>for this, what is.

0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.720
<v Speaker 3>The right tool for the right job.

0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:53.320
<v Speaker 2>And with that our system actually now recommends what combination

0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.480
<v Speaker 2>of tools in what order, and how that guide design

0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.960
<v Speaker 2>should be packaged to deliver the highest levels of efficient

0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:01.359
<v Speaker 2>see AI for us.

0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:03.719
<v Speaker 3>Has been a game changer in how we then deliver

0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:04.440
<v Speaker 3>the edits.

0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:07.920
<v Speaker 1>So then you've made the edits, you go to an embryo.

0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:09.320
<v Speaker 3>Sorry, you've got to cell.

0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.400
<v Speaker 2>Okay, And then so the next step is to do

0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:13.600
<v Speaker 2>the same thing they do with Dolly the sheep, which

0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.200
<v Speaker 2>is sematic cell nuclear transfer. So you've got two types

0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.119
<v Speaker 2>of cells, germ cells and sematic sels. Germ cells are

0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:21.760
<v Speaker 2>like egging sperm. Somatic cells are everything else, right, So

0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.199
<v Speaker 2>we're editing sematic cells in most cases. And so you

0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:29.640
<v Speaker 2>take the nucleus from the sematic cell and you put

0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:32.200
<v Speaker 2>it into that of a germ cell, and that almost

0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.600
<v Speaker 2>acts like the fertilization process of like when egg and

0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.439
<v Speaker 2>sperm meets, and then you go through a process that

0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:42.240
<v Speaker 2>stimulates those cells to start dividing, and then you have

0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.560
<v Speaker 2>the precursor to something that you would implant.

0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:46.320
<v Speaker 1>Two big criticisms.

0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:51.600
<v Speaker 3>One is only two that's incredible, fantastic.

0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.359
<v Speaker 1>We only have an em no. But one is that

0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:58.119
<v Speaker 1>it's not really the extinction if you're just changing a

0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.520
<v Speaker 1>few phenotypes. In other words, you justanging the appearance of

0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.120
<v Speaker 1>an animal to look more like an animal that was extinct.

0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.520
<v Speaker 1>Some people accuse you guys of doing that. On the

0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:09.920
<v Speaker 1>other end of the spectrum, some people say, no, you're

0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:12.760
<v Speaker 1>playing god. And Jennifer Dowton at the inventor of Chris,

0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:14.640
<v Speaker 1>but she didn't say this in reference to what you're doing,

0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.119
<v Speaker 1>but she said more broadly in her book, if we

0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:20.800
<v Speaker 1>can avoid altering nature more than we already have, shouldn't

0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:22.000
<v Speaker 1>we try to do so?

0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:26.120
<v Speaker 2>So I come from software, right is predominantly my background

0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:29.440
<v Speaker 2>in some space hard mostly software. And if you can

0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:32.320
<v Speaker 2>build something to achieve a function that's got three hundred

0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.679
<v Speaker 2>lines of code, and then you've got something that can

0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.200
<v Speaker 2>do it in seven lines code, every great programmer will

0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.920
<v Speaker 2>take you to the second one because there's less room

0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.960
<v Speaker 2>for error, there's less things to troubleshoot, it's cleaner, it

0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:45.400
<v Speaker 2>runs fast, it's more efficient.

0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:47.120
<v Speaker 3>There's a million reasons to do that.

0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.159
<v Speaker 2>We spend a lot of time and a lot of

0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:56.000
<v Speaker 2>money on compute AI comparative genomics, because no matter how

0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.880
<v Speaker 2>good you get at this, we're still in the world

0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.280
<v Speaker 2>of discovery. I do think, as I mentioned, it will

0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:05.520
<v Speaker 2>move to the world of strictly engineering and the entire

0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:10.679
<v Speaker 2>idea of genotype of phenotype expression. What genes cause different

0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.840
<v Speaker 2>things to do different things that result in a physical

0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:15.920
<v Speaker 2>attribute of an animal is.

0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:17.720
<v Speaker 1>The great medical question of our age.

0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:20.920
<v Speaker 2>It's a huge medical question, right, And that is the

0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:23.359
<v Speaker 2>core of what we were doing at Colossal, right. And

0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.119
<v Speaker 2>so you know, I would argue that we're a genetic

0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.280
<v Speaker 2>engineering company and a genotype of phenotype company at our core.

0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.119
<v Speaker 2>And so when you can do that, and you know,

0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:35.480
<v Speaker 2>if you look at a species, if you ask me

0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:38.800
<v Speaker 2>if you could just make a couple changes to the elephant,

0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:43.520
<v Speaker 2>you know, and it wasn't informed in any way by mammos,

0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:45.840
<v Speaker 2>but you just made like a hairy elephant.

0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:48.640
<v Speaker 3>I wouldn't consider that the extinction. I wouldn't.

0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:53.000
<v Speaker 2>But if you can take data like true data from

0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:57.000
<v Speaker 2>a mammoth and it can tell you what are the

0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:01.760
<v Speaker 2>genes that were fixed over time that really drove these phenotypes,

0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:06.760
<v Speaker 2>and you can either engineer in those exact variants which

0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:10.920
<v Speaker 2>we did in the direwolf, and potential enhancements that are

0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:14.440
<v Speaker 2>in the world of synthetic biology to produce those phenotypes

0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.919
<v Speaker 2>that are informed by ancient DNA, that's the extinction.

0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:19.920
<v Speaker 3>And so what's.

0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:21.640
<v Speaker 2>Interesting to me is all the people that saw Jurassic

0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.520
<v Speaker 2>Park and say it's a movie about dinosaurs, but then

0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:26.840
<v Speaker 2>don't want to call my direwolf direwolves. It's like, well,

0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:30.360
<v Speaker 2>you're just a fucking hypocrite because those are either genetically

0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:36.199
<v Speaker 2>modified frogs and birds with dino DNA in it, or

0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:37.080
<v Speaker 2>their dinosaurs.

0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:37.360
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:40.679
<v Speaker 2>And so this is a semantic question. It is not

0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:44.600
<v Speaker 2>a scientific question. It is a human construct that we're

0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:46.879
<v Speaker 2>putting on this. And so going to your second.

0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:49.520
<v Speaker 1>Question, the accusation that you're playing gold, you know.

0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.439
<v Speaker 2>I think that we play God every day, and I

0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:55.600
<v Speaker 2>think that taking cholesterol medication is a form of playing

0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:56.960
<v Speaker 2>God on a personal level.

0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:58.040
<v Speaker 3>It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:01.480
<v Speaker 2>I think the idea of cutting down the rainforest or

0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:04.080
<v Speaker 2>overfishing the ocean is playing God. So if you think

0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.280
<v Speaker 2>of if you define playing God is interfering with the

0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:08.240
<v Speaker 2>natural order.

0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.560
<v Speaker 3>To Jennifer's point, we do that all day long.

0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.080
<v Speaker 2>So why not do it in a way that helps

0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:18.879
<v Speaker 2>us develop technologies for human health care, inspires kids, and

0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:22.159
<v Speaker 2>can help with conservation. Because every conservationist will tell you

0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:27.080
<v Speaker 2>that while conserving land and protecting species is the primary

0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:29.439
<v Speaker 2>focus of conservation, which by the way we agree with.

0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:31.439
<v Speaker 2>We think that's where everyone should just spend ninety nine

0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:35.240
<v Speaker 2>percent of their time. Everyone in that field will still

0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:37.920
<v Speaker 2>tell you, even the most hardcore conservations in the world,

0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.120
<v Speaker 2>that is a losing battle in the end human progress

0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:45.440
<v Speaker 2>or whatever you want to define it as encroachment, overfishing,

0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:50.800
<v Speaker 2>overfeeding livestock versus natural order of animals that will end

0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:56.399
<v Speaker 2>with massive losses of biodiversity and potentially various ecosystem collapses.

0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.719
<v Speaker 2>And so the best thing in the world is for

0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:03.879
<v Speaker 2>us to continue to conserve land and save species because

0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:06.200
<v Speaker 2>of the hell of a lot, cheaper and more efficient

0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:08.120
<v Speaker 2>to save a species then bring back a species.

0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:10.920
<v Speaker 3>But there may be a day in humanity's future.

0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:13.840
<v Speaker 2>And I'm an eternal optimist, so I hope I'm wrong

0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:15.480
<v Speaker 2>on this, even though im running.

0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:16.119
<v Speaker 3>At the Extinction Company.

0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:19.200
<v Speaker 2>There could be a day in human history where there

0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:21.879
<v Speaker 2>is a species that we lose in the near future

0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:24.600
<v Speaker 2>that we have to bring back. You know, not to

0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:27.040
<v Speaker 2>get too Star Trek four on you, but who knows.

0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:30.119
<v Speaker 2>We may have to bring back blue whales, not to

0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:34.640
<v Speaker 2>appease some drone from an alien planet like in Star Trek,

0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:39.000
<v Speaker 2>but to potentially help with ocean currents and the phytal

0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:42.480
<v Speaker 2>plankton turnover in the nutrient cycling in the oceans. Right,

0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:45.760
<v Speaker 2>we don't know, and I think that having these technologies

0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:49.760
<v Speaker 2>are inevitable. In applying them in a way that helps humans,

0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:53.520
<v Speaker 2>helps animals and hopefully inspires kids is probably not a

0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:53.920
<v Speaker 2>bad thing.

0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:56.480
<v Speaker 1>Just to play Demod's evocat though. I mean, the dire

0:23:56.560 --> 0:24:01.600
<v Speaker 1>wolves are living on the enclosure, going to breed. What

0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:05.240
<v Speaker 1>will be different in future about animals that you bring back?

0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:07.280
<v Speaker 1>How will they be integrated in a way that these

0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:10.399
<v Speaker 1>tibles on being to the real world.

0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:13.800
<v Speaker 2>So they could breed. They are physiological capable of breeding.

0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:15.879
<v Speaker 2>We use different cellions as with male and females, right,

0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:18.600
<v Speaker 2>and then you know they are to your point, secure

0:24:18.680 --> 0:24:20.000
<v Speaker 2>expansive ecological preserve.

0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:23.520
<v Speaker 3>But what isn't these days? Like what is truly the wild?

0:24:23.560 --> 0:24:26.880
<v Speaker 2>This Kruger National Park is six million acres in Africa

0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:28.719
<v Speaker 2>that's fully fenced with lots of biodiversity.

0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:32.680
<v Speaker 3>Some would consider that the wild. It's still a park.

0:24:32.880 --> 0:24:36.000
<v Speaker 2>Right, So these animals, I assure you you know, they've

0:24:36.000 --> 0:24:37.719
<v Speaker 2>got ten full time people that take care of them.

0:24:37.720 --> 0:24:41.639
<v Speaker 2>They're on two thousand acres of a yellowstone like environment.

0:24:41.960 --> 0:24:45.120
<v Speaker 2>They live quite quite well, but our long term goal

0:24:45.160 --> 0:24:47.120
<v Speaker 2>with all of our species is to put them back

0:24:47.480 --> 0:24:51.280
<v Speaker 2>into the wild in collaborations with indigenous people groups, private landowners,

0:24:51.480 --> 0:24:54.639
<v Speaker 2>and governments. Right, So those are very long term processes.

0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:58.000
<v Speaker 2>I won't say that we have a clear date that

0:24:58.080 --> 0:25:00.199
<v Speaker 2>we could put dire wolves back in the wild, but

0:25:00.200 --> 0:25:02.160
<v Speaker 2>I also say we won't. Right, that's really not even

0:25:02.240 --> 0:25:05.280
<v Speaker 2>up to colossal, that's up to We've had indigenous people

0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:07.800
<v Speaker 2>groups express interest in wanting that, but we have to

0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:09.719
<v Speaker 2>work with you know, the government, the EPA.

0:25:09.880 --> 0:25:11.680
<v Speaker 3>There's a lot that goes into this, right.

0:25:11.960 --> 0:25:14.000
<v Speaker 2>So, like one of the projects we just announced was

0:25:14.040 --> 0:25:18.920
<v Speaker 2>in partnership with Yellowstone is using AI for bioacoustics for wolves,

0:25:19.040 --> 0:25:22.960
<v Speaker 2>so we understand migratory patterns, so we understand different call patterns,

0:25:23.080 --> 0:25:25.680
<v Speaker 2>so we understand things, right, Because you know, the best

0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:27.680
<v Speaker 2>thing that humans can do is figure out how we

0:25:27.720 --> 0:25:30.879
<v Speaker 2>live with nature, not just bring back nature. And I

0:25:30.880 --> 0:25:34.800
<v Speaker 2>think that those technologies are critical to be developed in

0:25:34.880 --> 0:25:38.160
<v Speaker 2>concert with the extinction projects so that we can make

0:25:38.240 --> 0:25:42.360
<v Speaker 2>rewilding work for the animals themselves and humanity that has

0:25:42.440 --> 0:25:43.399
<v Speaker 2>encroached on their land.

0:25:43.880 --> 0:25:45.520
<v Speaker 1>No, and I like what you said earlier about some

0:25:45.600 --> 0:25:48.320
<v Speaker 1>of these secondary benefits like the vaccine for the elephants.

0:25:48.920 --> 0:25:51.080
<v Speaker 1>I know there are tons and tons of others, including

0:25:51.600 --> 0:25:56.200
<v Speaker 1>you know, potentially bacteria to eat, ocean plastic. We've talked

0:25:56.280 --> 0:25:59.199
<v Speaker 1>at the beginning about mortality, and then we talked a

0:25:59.200 --> 0:26:02.560
<v Speaker 1>lot about de extinction. So I just want to close

0:26:02.640 --> 0:26:06.000
<v Speaker 1>with this question. If you had a Chillncee to read

0:26:06.040 --> 0:26:09.480
<v Speaker 1>your obituary and you're happy with it, how do you

0:26:09.520 --> 0:26:12.840
<v Speaker 1>complete the sentence? He did this because.

0:26:14.040 --> 0:26:17.959
<v Speaker 2>He did this because others were too afraid to do it.

0:26:18.720 --> 0:26:19.439
<v Speaker 1>What do you mean by that?

0:26:20.119 --> 0:26:23.640
<v Speaker 2>I think that making change is hard, and I think

0:26:23.680 --> 0:26:29.400
<v Speaker 2>it requires determination, it requires thick skin. I think that

0:26:29.680 --> 0:26:32.959
<v Speaker 2>some of the biggest and boldest things have had a

0:26:33.040 --> 0:26:37.200
<v Speaker 2>perspective of abundance, and it's also a not zero sum game.

0:26:37.720 --> 0:26:40.240
<v Speaker 2>And I think that's important because I think right now,

0:26:40.880 --> 0:26:44.000
<v Speaker 2>sometimes when you work on new things, it's scary and

0:26:44.040 --> 0:26:47.080
<v Speaker 2>it's hard, and I've been criticized a lot. You know,

0:26:47.920 --> 0:26:51.119
<v Speaker 2>I've been a very long term supporter of developing technologies

0:26:51.119 --> 0:26:54.199
<v Speaker 2>for climate change. Yet I have a lot of people

0:26:54.640 --> 0:26:56.720
<v Speaker 2>that have been very very kind to me for quite

0:26:56.720 --> 0:26:58.760
<v Speaker 2>some times that aren't as kind of me today as

0:26:58.760 --> 0:26:59.320
<v Speaker 2>they used to be.

0:26:59.640 --> 0:27:01.440
<v Speaker 3>But it's okay, because at.

0:27:01.400 --> 0:27:04.000
<v Speaker 2>The end of the day, I am convicted in what

0:27:04.040 --> 0:27:06.800
<v Speaker 2>I'm doing and I'm not afraid to do it because

0:27:06.920 --> 0:27:11.280
<v Speaker 2>I truly believe that we need these technologies for conservation,

0:27:12.040 --> 0:27:14.000
<v Speaker 2>and I think we need to also do big, bold

0:27:14.040 --> 0:27:16.879
<v Speaker 2>things that will inspire the next generation so that we

0:27:16.920 --> 0:27:20.560
<v Speaker 2>have more scientists and astronauts and fewer influencers.

0:27:22.119 --> 0:27:24.399
<v Speaker 1>Thank you, very very well said, Thanks so much for

0:27:24.440 --> 0:27:55.240
<v Speaker 1>having me for tech Stuff. I'm most velocian. This episode

0:27:55.280 --> 0:27:58.600
<v Speaker 1>was produced by Eliza Dennis and Tori Dominguez. It was

0:27:58.640 --> 0:28:01.960
<v Speaker 1>executive produced by me Kara Price and Kate Osborne for

0:28:02.040 --> 0:28:07.280
<v Speaker 1>Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvel for iHeart Podcasts. Jack Insley mixed

0:28:07.280 --> 0:28:11.040
<v Speaker 1>this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song. Join

0:28:11.119 --> 0:28:13.560
<v Speaker 1>us on Friday for the Week in Tech, when Karen

0:28:13.600 --> 0:28:15.639
<v Speaker 1>and I will run through the tech headlines that you

0:28:15.680 --> 0:28:19.040
<v Speaker 1>may have missed, and please do rate, review, and reach

0:28:19.080 --> 0:28:22.560
<v Speaker 1>out to us at tech Stuff podcast at gmail dot com.

0:28:22.600 --> 0:28:23.520
<v Speaker 1>We love hearing from you.