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Speaker 1: Pushkin. There's a company called Colossal Biosciences that has raised

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Speaker 1: over two hundred million dollars and its stated aim is

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Speaker 1: to bring back the wooly mammoth and also the dodo bird,

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Speaker 1: as well as a considerably less famous but equally extinct

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Speaker 1: animal called the thylacine aka the Tasmanian tiger. I have

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Speaker 1: questions like, why why are private investors putting hundreds of

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Speaker 1: millions of dollars into this company? And really mostly how

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Speaker 1: how do you bring back a species that has been

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Speaker 1: extinct for centuries. I'm Jacob Goldstein, and this is What's

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Speaker 1: problem the show where I talk to people who are

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Speaker 1: trying to make technological progress. My guest today is Beth Shapiro.

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Speaker 1: She's the chief scientific officer at Colossal Biosciences, a company

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Speaker 1: that is in the business of d extinction. BET's problem

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Speaker 1: is this, how do you use the tools of modern

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Speaker 1: biology to bring back species that have been extinct for

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Speaker 1: hundreds or thousands of years. Also, on kind of a

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Speaker 1: more subtle level, BET's problem is just defining for the

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Speaker 1: world what de extinction really means. Before Beth joined Colossal,

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Speaker 1: she spent decades in academia. She helped to pioneer the

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Speaker 1: field of paleogenetics, studying the genes of ancient organisms, and

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Speaker 1: she spent a lot of time studying the Dodo bird.

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Speaker 1: Tell me about your life with the Dodo.

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Speaker 2: I guess my first exposure to the Dodo was in

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine when I started my PhD at Oxford.

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Speaker 2: The ancient DNA lab that we were using with in

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Speaker 2: the back of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History,

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Speaker 2: and that is so we had to pass by the

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Speaker 2: Dodo every time we were going to the lab. And

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Speaker 2: I was, you know, in this field ancient DNA where

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Speaker 2: we could extract DNA from things, no one was sure

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Speaker 2: what exactly a Dodo was, what kind of bird it

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Speaker 2: was most closely related to, And so I thought it

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Speaker 2: would be really cool if I could use these really

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Speaker 2: new tools and technologies to be able to solve this

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Speaker 2: question answer what sort of bird a Dodo is? So

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Speaker 2: I ask if I could extract DNA from the Dodo.

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Speaker 2: If they said no, because it is a very specials special,

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Speaker 2: precious specimen and you have not proven that you are

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Speaker 2: good at this yet, And so I proved myself. You know,

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Speaker 2: I extracted DNA from other birds and other things, and

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Speaker 2: I was having pretty good success with this, and they said, okay,

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Speaker 2: you can take some grungey bits out of the inside

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Speaker 2: of the skull of this dodo with these long forceps.

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Speaker 1: They have this one Dodo that's an actual Dodo, and

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Speaker 1: you're like, look, I could I could tell you whatever

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Speaker 1: the genome of that bird if you just let me

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Speaker 1: at it.

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Speaker 2: Yep, that's well, maybe not the genome, but I wanted

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Speaker 2: to know at the time what type of bird it was.

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Speaker 2: And at the time we were the field of ancient

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Speaker 2: DNA was focusing on extracting mitochondrial DNA, which is a

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Speaker 2: type of DNA that is inherited maternally, so it doesn't

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Speaker 2: tell you everything about a species. So there's lots and

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Speaker 2: lots of mitochondrial DNA in every cell, and there's only

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Speaker 2: two copies of every nuclear locus that's in the cells.

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Speaker 2: And so in the early days of ancient DNA, when

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Speaker 2: we really weren't very good at recovering DNA, we were

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Speaker 2: focusing on mitochondria. So I wanted to get mitochondria from

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Speaker 2: this Dodo specimen. So why I could answer this outstanding

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Speaker 2: taxonomic question, what type of bird is or was a dodo?

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Speaker 1: Uh huh, because people were just trying to guess based

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Speaker 1: on the morphology, based on what it looked like.

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Speaker 2: Essentially, Yeah, I mean, taxonomy before DNA really was that

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Speaker 2: people are comparing the shapes of things. But DNA is

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Speaker 2: a really unbiased way of reconstructing evolutionary history and it's

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Speaker 2: really powerful, and so I wanted to be able to

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Speaker 2: apply that in addition to the morphological data that people

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Speaker 2: have been collecting for hundreds of years.

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Speaker 1: And so they eventually let you at the bird, and

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Speaker 1: what do you figure out?

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Speaker 2: They first let me take some long force ups to

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Speaker 2: try to scrape some gunk out of the inside of

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Speaker 2: its skull, and that led to nothing because there wasn't

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Speaker 2: any DNA and the gunked up bits of gunk from

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Speaker 2: the inside of the cell. And then they finally let

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Speaker 2: me cut a tiny little piece of bone out of

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Speaker 2: its leg and I was able to extract mitochondrial DNA

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Speaker 2: from that and compare that to all other types of

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Speaker 2: birds that were hypothesized to potentially be a dodo, and

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Speaker 2: we discovered that the dodo is a type of pigeon.

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Speaker 2: It falls within the diversity of pigeons. Most closely related

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Speaker 2: to a pigeon called the nicobar pigeon, which is a

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Speaker 2: very strong flyer, very beautiful bird, different a lot different

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Speaker 2: from a dodo.

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Speaker 1: So you figure out that the dodo was a pigeon

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Speaker 1: that was relatively early in your career, right, and then

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Speaker 1: spend a long time doing scholarly work, doing academic work.

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Speaker 1: You eventually sequence the whole Dodo genome, right, and then

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Speaker 1: eventually what last year you get to Colossal? What made

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Speaker 1: you want to join Colossal?

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean you summarized twenty five years of my

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Speaker 2: academic history.

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Speaker 1: You want to give me a high point along the way.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, I've been working in this field of

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Speaker 2: ancient DNA, trying to develop tools to be able to

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Speaker 2: get more DNA out of things, to look at the

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Speaker 2: nuclear genomes of different species, develop computational approaches to be

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Speaker 2: able to use the genetic information that we've extracted to

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Speaker 2: tell us when populations are growing and shrinking, To look

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Speaker 2: at replacements, to get DNA directly from ancient sediments so

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Speaker 2: that we can look at what whole ecosystems look like.

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Speaker 2: And all of this really driving toward understanding how we

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Speaker 2: can use the past as a sort of completed evolutionary

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Speaker 2: experiment to try to make more informed decisions of what

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Speaker 2: we can do to protect and preserve species and habitats

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Speaker 2: and ecosystems moving forward. I mean, now, when we're deciding

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Speaker 2: what we're going to do from a conservation perspective, we

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Speaker 2: look around, we see things are in trouble, and we

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Speaker 2: use science we make educated guesses about what the best

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Speaker 2: things are going to be to restore missing ecological interactions

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Speaker 2: to help make these different communities more resilient or more

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Speaker 2: robust in the face of these changes. And ancient DNA

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Speaker 2: lets us do this by showing us how things responded

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Speaker 2: in the past to massive perturbations to their habitat, whether

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Speaker 2: that's an ice age or a really warm interglacial, or

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Speaker 2: the introduction of people or a predator, a different type

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Speaker 2: of predator into that into that ecosystem. And every time

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Speaker 2: we would publish this work that we would want to

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Speaker 2: tell people about it, we would we would want to

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Speaker 2: explain to people what it is that we're excited about,

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Speaker 2: But often the only question that people wanted answered was

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Speaker 2: what does this mean about how close we are to

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Speaker 2: bringing these species back to life?

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Speaker 1: Kind of fighting that right, like you write about it

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Speaker 1: like there's I was reading the twenty twenty edition of

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Speaker 1: your book How to Clone a Mammoth, where you said

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Speaker 1: the present focus on bringing back particular species, whether that

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Speaker 1: means mammoths, Dodo's passenger pigeons, or anything else, is misguided, right,

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Speaker 1: which seems tell me about that? Is there a point

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Speaker 1: where you stop thinking it's misguided?

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Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of complications. There a biological, technical,

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Speaker 2: and ethical challenges associated with bringing extinct species back to life,

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Speaker 2: And so you ask what is misguided? When people hear

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Speaker 2: about de extinction or the word de extinction, or think

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Speaker 2: about bringing mammoths back to life, what they imagine is

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Speaker 2: recreating something that is identical in every way to a

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Speaker 2: mammoth that used to be alive. But that isn't possible, right,

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Speaker 2: And I think that is where I find the push

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Speaker 2: to this to be misguided. As I said at the time,

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Speaker 2: it's a little bit more nuanced than just as explained.

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Speaker 2: So what is misguided is this idea that de extinction

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Speaker 2: is a solution to the extinction crisis. Right, once a

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Speaker 2: species is gone, we can't bring it back. That species

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Speaker 2: is gone. What we can bring back are some of

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Speaker 2: these core phenotypes, whatever it was that was about that

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Speaker 2: species that made it unique in their habitat some way

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Speaker 2: of replacing that missing ecological interaction. But it's not by

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Speaker 2: resurrect something that's identical to the species that used to

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Speaker 2: be there, but by taking species that are alive today

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Speaker 2: and tweaking them using the tools of genetic engineering, so

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Speaker 2: that they can fit into that ecosystem, so they can

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Speaker 2: play some of those roles ecological roles that the extinct

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Speaker 2: species once had. Does that make sense?

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Speaker 1: It does? It seems somewhat at odds with the sort

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Speaker 1: of public messaging of Colossal Right, Like I was reading

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Speaker 1: your writing on all of what you're saying makes sense

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Speaker 1: and we can talk more about it. But it is

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Speaker 1: the case that like the homepage of Colossal Right Now says,

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Speaker 1: we endeavor to jumpstart nature's ancestral heartbeat to see the

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Speaker 1: wooly mammoth thunder upon the tundra once again, right, which

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Speaker 1: is not to see the Asian elephant with some phenotypical

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Speaker 1: traits of the wooly mammoth. Like, so, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: like how do you reconcile those? Is it? Just like

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Speaker 1: there's sort of a public story that needs to be simplified,

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Speaker 1: just because that's the nature of public stories and then

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Speaker 1: a more complex technical story.

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Speaker 2: If you dive into the website on Colossal, it does

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Speaker 2: explain that the idea of the extinction includes resurrecting extinct

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Speaker 2: traits using extinct genomes, but also engineering that we are

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Speaker 2: taking Asian elephants and engineering them to have and express

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Speaker 2: some of these mammoth trades. On the website, they're even

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Speaker 2: called Arctic adapted elephants in several places. So I think

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Speaker 2: it depends on what you're willing to accept as a mammoth. Right,

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Speaker 2: if you are only ever going to accept something that

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Speaker 2: is ecologically, genetically and physiologically one identical to a species

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Speaker 2: that used to be alive, then that's not what we're doing,

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Speaker 2: because that's not possible. But if you are willing to

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Speaker 2: accept an elephant that has longer hair, slightly larger back,

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Speaker 2: the longer curved tusks, that is capable of living in

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Speaker 2: the habitat that mammoths once lived in and playing the

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Speaker 2: roles that mammoths once played, then that is Colossal's goal,

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Speaker 2: and that is what we are we are saying that

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Speaker 2: we are making.

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Speaker 1: Has your view on sort of what scientists should try

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Speaker 1: and do, or how they should talk about it, or

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Speaker 1: anything along those lines changed over time, like this idea

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Speaker 1: of the extinction, which I don't want to get too

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Speaker 1: caught up in the semantics, right. I understand that it

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Speaker 1: can mean different things different people, and that there's a

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Speaker 1: kind of subtle meaning of it, but like, has your

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Speaker 1: view in fact changed it all over time?

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Speaker 2: My view is that the idea of de extinction is

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Speaker 2: exciting because it allows us to write down a long

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Speaker 2: list of all of these challenges that we would need

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Speaker 2: to be able to solve if we were going to

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Speaker 2: do this, and along the way we come up with

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Speaker 2: new technologies and new ideas and new associations that have

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Speaker 2: application to present day conservation work as well as to

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Speaker 2: extinction work. My idea of whether de extinction, if you

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Speaker 2: define it as bringing something back that is one hundred

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Speaker 2: percent identical to a species that used to be alive,

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Speaker 2: is impossible, has not changed, right. I don't like the

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Speaker 2: idea that people would say that that is what we're doing,

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Speaker 2: because I think then that gives people license to imagine

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Speaker 2: that extinction isn't a problem. But extinction is a problem,

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Speaker 2: and this is not a solution to that problem. But

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Speaker 2: am I willing to say that we shouldn't try this,

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Speaker 2: that we shouldn't develop these tools that may have application

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Speaker 2: to helping species not become extinct because we're worried that

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Speaker 2: somebody is going to get tied up in the semantics

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Speaker 2: of something and accuse us of something we're not. No.

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Speaker 2: Am I sad that Ben Lamb has been able to

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Speaker 2: raise two hundred and twenty five million dollars to be

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Speaker 2: able to invest into developing these tools that I hope,

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Speaker 2: I imagine are going to dramatically impact the way that

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Speaker 2: we do by diversity conservation moving forward. No, I think

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Speaker 2: this is amazing. I think it's a fantastic opportunity that

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Speaker 2: we should celebrate.

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Speaker 1: Great since you mentioned that that Ben Lamb, the CEO

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Speaker 1: of the company, has raised two hundred and twenty five

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Speaker 1: million dollars, Like, what what is the business model? You know,

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a private company, right, it's not a nonprofit.

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Speaker 1: So how are the investors going to make a profit?

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Speaker 2: You know, this is that's a Ben question. It's not

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Speaker 2: a me question. I'm the chief science officer. But you know,

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Speaker 2: some of the ways that the company will make money

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Speaker 2: is along the path toward the extinction. There are a

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Speaker 2: ton of technologies that are going to be developed, things

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Speaker 2: like multiplex genomediting, different approaches to driving genetic changes. We're

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Speaker 2: working on an artificial womb as one of the tools,

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Speaker 2: and all of these will drive patents that will be

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Speaker 2: useful for things outside of the extinction landscape. Ben has

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Speaker 2: promised that any technology that we develop for conservation can

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Speaker 2: be applied to conservation without having to pay for that.

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Speaker 2: So he's promised that that tools that we develop will

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Speaker 2: go to conservation at no cost. But the path toward

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Speaker 2: toward bringing in investment return for investors really is in

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Speaker 2: the space of being at the absolute cutting edge of

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Speaker 2: genetic engineering and that sort of science.

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Speaker 1: Right, And a company was already spun out sort of

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Speaker 1: in that way, right, is it form Bio that's spun

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Speaker 1: out of a spun out of Colossal and is a

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Speaker 1: sort of kind of platform genetics, Like, yes, it's.

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Speaker 2: A software company's sort of developing tools that we really

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Speaker 2: need to be able to track what we're doing all

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Speaker 2: the different experiments that are going on in Colossal that

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Speaker 2: have to do with a different species, so that we're

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Speaker 2: not repeating experiments, but it's super useful for being able

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Speaker 2: to refine experimental designs. And so that is a spinout

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Speaker 2: company that's working on developing software platforms for other industries

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Speaker 2: including drug development, etc.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about how it works and sort of

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Speaker 1: what you've figured out and what you still have to

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Speaker 1: figure out. And I know how it works is different

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Speaker 1: for different species. So tell me about the plan with

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Speaker 1: the mammoth.

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Speaker 2: Sure, So, there are lots of different steps toward figuring

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Speaker 2: out how to take an Asian elephant and turn it

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Speaker 2: into an Arctic adapted elephant that we would let's call

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Speaker 2: a mammoth, defending on whether you're willing to say that.

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Speaker 2: The first step is to figure out the link between

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Speaker 2: the genotype, the a's and c's and g's and t's

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Speaker 2: that make up on organism's genome and the phenotype or

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Speaker 2: the way that organism looks and acts. For this, we

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Speaker 2: collect a lot of information, go out into the field,

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Speaker 2: collect a lot of mammoth bones, sequence high quality whole

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Speaker 2: coverage genomic data. We have academic collaborators who are helping

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Speaker 2: with that, Luvo de Lens Lab and Stockholm is a

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Speaker 2: major advisor to this group. We have now more than

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Speaker 2: fifty high coverage genome sequences from mammoths, and we can

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Speaker 2: compare these to genome sequences from Asian elephants and African

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Speaker 2: elephants and other afrotherorians, so they differentiate all mammoths from

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Speaker 2: everything else that's there. As a way to start to look,

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Speaker 2: we can get information from doing experiments like looking and

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Speaker 2: see what genes are being expressed during tusk development, or

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Speaker 2: what genes are being expressed in the follicles that produce

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Speaker 2: long hair. As another way of narrowing down where our

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Speaker 2: fosi should be as far as identifying these genes that

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Speaker 2: we want to change. Once we have a panel, we

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Speaker 2: then have to engineer those and so for this we

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Speaker 2: take cells from elephants that are growing in a dish

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Speaker 2: in a lab. A few months ago we released a

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Speaker 2: pre print and now we have the paper under revision

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Speaker 2: where we were able to derive induced play potent stem

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Speaker 2: cells from elephants. This is something people have been trying

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Speaker 2: to do for a long time and our mammoth team

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Speaker 2: was successful in doing this. This is really cool and

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Speaker 2: useful for us because it means that we have cell

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Speaker 2: lines that are healthy and happy and survive in a

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Speaker 2: dish that we can transform into different tissue types. So

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Speaker 2: if we have hypotheses about whether this particular DNA sequence

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Speaker 2: change causes changes in hair growth, we can make a

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Speaker 2: type of organoid where we can test that hypothesis. So

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Speaker 2: we don't have to make an elephant in order to

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Speaker 2: test our hypothesis. We do this in culture.

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Speaker 1: So, dumb question, in that particular example you gave, would

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Speaker 1: there actually be like hair growing out of the dish

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Speaker 1: in the lab?

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Speaker 2: Yes?

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Speaker 1: That's rad okay, So you have that, which is a

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Speaker 1: useful sort of platform, right, A useful tool certainly to

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Speaker 1: test hypotheses about, well, what genetic changes lead to what

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Speaker 1: phenotypical changes right? Go on? Right?

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Speaker 2: So then after you do that, you have your your

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Speaker 2: cells growing in addition to lad that you've engineered all

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Speaker 2: of your edits into. So I've probably skipped over there.

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Speaker 2: Lots of very difficult challenging biology. Identify what genes we're

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Speaker 2: interested in, figure out how to edit these the genomes

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Speaker 2: and cells to get all those changes in them. And

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Speaker 2: we have teams of people who are working on multiplex

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Speaker 2: genome editing, replacing large chunks of DNA rather than just

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Speaker 2: making single edits to the DNA sequence lots of different

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Speaker 2: approaches that are developing new tools, new ways of doing

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Speaker 2: genome engineering that of course have application outside of the

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Speaker 2: field of the extinction or mammoth or any of these

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Speaker 2: other cells. Then once you have your edited cell, you

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Speaker 2: do cloning, sematic cell nuclear transfer, the same process that

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Speaker 2: brought us Dolly the sheep. You have planted that into

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Speaker 2: a host, and then eventually your animal is born. So

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Speaker 2: all of that is very hard. I have summed cross

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Speaker 2: very hard, difficult, challenging things, and in elephants in particular,

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Speaker 2: one of the one of the groups that we have

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Speaker 2: at Colossal is an EXODEV group or artificial boom group,

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Speaker 2: with the idea of eventually being able to do all

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Speaker 2: of this without needing a surrogate hoast, without needing to

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Speaker 2: use a female elephant to get there. The mammoth project

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Speaker 2: obviously has a very long timeline.

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Speaker 1: In terms of the sort of macro side. So that

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Speaker 1: was a description of the cellular level for the most part. Right, Like,

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Speaker 1: you're starting with an Asian elephant, which I understand is

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Speaker 1: quite similar genetically to the mammoth, Right, like more than

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Speaker 1: ninety nine percent the same genetically, is that? Right?

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Speaker 2: That's right?

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Speaker 1: How different does an Asian elephant look from a mammoth?

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Speaker 2: I don't think I've quantified that.

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Speaker 1: What do you think? I don't have any idea. I mean,

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Speaker 1: how much bigger is a mammoth at the same size?

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Speaker 2: The size is not a is not one of the changes.

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Speaker 2: I mean, a mammoth has a slightly different shape, but

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Speaker 2: has a different, different tusk shape, and it's obviously harrier.

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Speaker 1: And how far along is that project? I suppose one

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Speaker 1: kind of milestone is implanting some genetically modified elephant that's

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Speaker 1: a little bit more mammoth like into an Asian elephant.

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Speaker 1: When do you think that might happen?

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Speaker 2: I always tell Ben and also the comms team here

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Speaker 2: that I am not going to answer timing questions. I

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Speaker 2: would love to be able to predict the timing of

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Speaker 2: scientific innovation, but I want my teams to be able

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Speaker 2: to do good scientific work and to think hard about

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Speaker 2: the experiments that they're doing, rather than to work against

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Speaker 2: an externally imposed deadline. Now, George and Ben and Ariona

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Speaker 2: have said that they plan to have this happen before

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight, and I, as far as I know,

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Speaker 2: this team is on goal to being able to do this.

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Speaker 2: Before the implantation, and that that would be fascinating. Now

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Speaker 2: it is not going to be all of the genetic changes, right,

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Speaker 2: It's not going to be absolutely everything, but you're writing

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Speaker 2: that it is an important first step to try to

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Speaker 2: get there. We have a separate team called our Animal

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Speaker 2: ops team, who's really it's made of people from the

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Speaker 2: veterinarian zoo community who are working with the animals, who

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Speaker 2: are working to try to really learn what these animals

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Speaker 2: need to be physically and psychologically healthy and captive environments

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Speaker 2: to learn about processes like OPU, which means ovum pick up.

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Speaker 2: This is how do we get eggs from these animals

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Speaker 2: that are going to be the surrogate hosts for somatic

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Speaker 2: cell nuclear transfers. We're also working with the community of

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Speaker 2: people who are doing the Northern white Rhino Southern White

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Speaker 2: Rhino project because you know, what we learn in one

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Speaker 2: species we can apply to other species. But there are

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Speaker 2: lots of very hard problems to solve there, but they're

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Speaker 2: also important problems for the future of those species. So

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Speaker 2: remember that anything that we learn as we push toward

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Speaker 2: a mammoth is also something that we can apply to

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Speaker 2: elephant conservation and to rhino conservation. So this is all

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Speaker 2: work that is hard, but I appreciate that we have

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Speaker 2: the opportunity and the finances to be able to put

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Speaker 2: the energy into it.

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Speaker 1: And so, setting aside the understandably sensitive question of specific timelines,

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Speaker 1: talk about the sort of happy outcome for the mammoth

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Speaker 1: project in whatever timeframe it may happen, If it sort

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Speaker 1: of works, what does that look like in the world.

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Speaker 2: The long term happy outcome to me is that we

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Speaker 2: have structured communities of animals that are able to live

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Speaker 2: in an environment that is really similar to the wild

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Speaker 2: environment to replace whatever ecological interactions are missing because of

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Speaker 2: their extinction. And this happy outcome to me, where we

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Speaker 2: have grandparents and parents and offspring that are all living

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Speaker 2: in a wild habitat somewhere. This is not a near

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Speaker 2: term solution. Elephants have twenty two months gestation. They reach

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Speaker 2: sexual maturity when they're teenagers. So this is something that

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Speaker 2: I can tell you isn't going to be by twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty eight or twenty thirty, right. This happy outcome of

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Speaker 2: an entire population or community of animals living in the

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Speaker 2: wild is.

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Speaker 1: That is a sort of kind of human lifetime's time

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Speaker 1: scale this's a one hundred years story, absolutely, And what

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Speaker 1: I mean would that be Siberia? Is it basically the tundra.

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Speaker 2: It wouldn't necessarily have to be Siberia, wouldn't necessarily have

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Speaker 2: to be Alaska or the Yukon. Remember, mammoths lived everywhere

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Speaker 2: from temperate to subtropical zones. They live throughout warm intervals

402
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Speaker 2: and they live throughout cold intervals. But where these ecosystems

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Speaker 2: have been most changed by their absence is the Arctic

404
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Speaker 2: and places where the plant community has changed a lot.

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Speaker 2: There are lots of missing animal species. We know elephants

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Speaker 2: are engineers of their ecosystems. There's no and to suspect

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Speaker 2: mammoths wouldn't have similarly been engineers of their ecosystem in

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Speaker 2: the past.

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Speaker 1: In a minute, why bringing back the dodo maybe even

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Speaker 1: harder than bringing back the mammoth. Tell me about the dodo.

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Speaker 1: Give me like a dodo one on one.

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Speaker 2: Well, based on sort of written records from the first

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Speaker 2: people who saw them, So dodos lived on this island.

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Speaker 2: They were a flightless bird, so about the sides of

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Speaker 2: a really big chicken, and they probably ate fruit. They

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Speaker 2: had a big beak that was probably able to crush

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Speaker 2: fruits and seeds and things like that. We don't know

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Speaker 2: much about their color. The people who drew them, they're

419
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Speaker 2: very Some of them looked like they couldn't have actually

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Speaker 2: stood up according to the to the way that they've

421
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Speaker 2: been drawn. It's funny because most people who drew a

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Speaker 2: dodo never saw one, because dodos went extinct within a

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Speaker 2: couple of decads after the first person set foot on

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Speaker 2: Borucius Island. And it wasn't because people ate them. There

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Speaker 2: are some written records that suggests that they didn't taste

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Speaker 2: very good, but because when people arrived in Mauritius, they

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Speaker 2: brought things like cats and pigs and rats, and dodos

428
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Speaker 2: laid a single egg and a nest on the ground

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Speaker 2: because they couldn't fly, and the things that we brought

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Speaker 2: with us, that people brought with us just ate all

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Speaker 2: the eggs. And if you can't, you can't have offspring,

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Speaker 2: then you're not going to survive.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a single egg and a nest on the ground

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Speaker 1: is like a perfect I mean, it's not a metaphor

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Speaker 1: because it's real. It's just so wildly vulnerable, right, it's

436
00:24:46,556 --> 00:24:50,836
Speaker 1: just so vulnerable. So okay, so you're trying to bring

437
00:24:50,956 --> 00:24:53,596
Speaker 1: back the Dodo or something like the Dodo, and I

438
00:24:53,636 --> 00:24:57,156
Speaker 1: understand that one particular challenge there is you actually can't

439
00:24:57,276 --> 00:25:01,156
Speaker 1: use the same cloning technology that people have been using

440
00:25:01,156 --> 00:25:04,396
Speaker 1: for decades for mammals. Right, tell me about that.

441
00:25:04,836 --> 00:25:07,676
Speaker 2: It's not possible to clone birds the same way that

442
00:25:07,716 --> 00:25:11,356
Speaker 2: we clone mammals because of the intricacies of their reproductive system.

443
00:25:11,436 --> 00:25:15,196
Speaker 2: So the way that Colossal is working on this problem

444
00:25:15,236 --> 00:25:17,676
Speaker 2: with birds and is similar to way that other teams

445
00:25:17,716 --> 00:25:20,956
Speaker 2: have been doing this. There's a person called Mike McGrew

446
00:25:21,076 --> 00:25:23,556
Speaker 2: who's in Edinburgh, the Roslin Institute, who's developed a lot

447
00:25:23,556 --> 00:25:26,236
Speaker 2: of this technology for chickens, but that's the only bird

448
00:25:26,276 --> 00:25:29,196
Speaker 2: species so far for with this technology exists, and we're

449
00:25:29,236 --> 00:25:32,116
Speaker 2: working on that now for pigeons for the Dodo project.

450
00:25:32,356 --> 00:25:36,156
Speaker 2: So the idea is when the egg is laid, the

451
00:25:36,676 --> 00:25:39,836
Speaker 2: cells that are called primordial germ cells. These are the

452
00:25:39,876 --> 00:25:43,636
Speaker 2: cells that will eventually become germ cells, either sperm or eggs,

453
00:25:43,636 --> 00:25:46,676
Speaker 2: depending on the biological sex of the animal. They are

454
00:25:46,756 --> 00:25:50,756
Speaker 2: circulating throughout the bloodstream of the developing embryo. They're on

455
00:25:50,796 --> 00:25:53,036
Speaker 2: their way to the gonads, which don't exist yet because

456
00:25:53,036 --> 00:25:55,676
Speaker 2: it's not that stage of development yet, and at that

457
00:25:55,716 --> 00:25:59,076
Speaker 2: point you can stick a needle into the egg very carefully.

458
00:25:59,076 --> 00:26:01,396
Speaker 2: I've actually seen our DODO lead do this a few times.

459
00:26:01,396 --> 00:26:03,516
Speaker 2: It's pretty impressive how you do this. And you can

460
00:26:03,636 --> 00:26:06,556
Speaker 2: suck out a little bit of that circulating blood without

461
00:26:06,556 --> 00:26:08,836
Speaker 2: harming the embryo, and you can put that in a

462
00:26:08,836 --> 00:26:12,116
Speaker 2: dish in a lab and if you understand what the

463
00:26:12,196 --> 00:26:14,836
Speaker 2: right culture conditions are for those cells, you can keep

464
00:26:14,876 --> 00:26:17,556
Speaker 2: those cells alive. Then they'll start to grow and make

465
00:26:17,676 --> 00:26:21,036
Speaker 2: lots more of themselves, and then you can edit those cells.

466
00:26:21,836 --> 00:26:24,356
Speaker 2: And then because those are edited, you can inject them

467
00:26:24,836 --> 00:26:28,236
Speaker 2: into an embryo at that same developmental stage and they

468
00:26:28,276 --> 00:26:31,516
Speaker 2: will circulate around the bloodstream established in the gonads, and

469
00:26:31,596 --> 00:26:34,996
Speaker 2: that chick will be chimeric. Right. It will not be

470
00:26:35,116 --> 00:26:39,156
Speaker 2: edited itself, but it's sperm or it's eggs will be edited.

471
00:26:39,516 --> 00:26:41,476
Speaker 2: And then you can, if it's a female, you will

472
00:26:41,476 --> 00:26:44,436
Speaker 2: fertilize it with edited sperm and then when it lays eggs,

473
00:26:44,956 --> 00:26:48,476
Speaker 2: those eggs will hatched into the edited offspring.

474
00:26:49,196 --> 00:26:54,796
Speaker 1: And so I mean is that I don't know if

475
00:26:54,796 --> 00:26:56,676
Speaker 1: it's a dumb question to ask, Is that the hardest

476
00:26:56,716 --> 00:26:59,636
Speaker 1: part of the DODO like project that whole idea, or

477
00:26:59,676 --> 00:27:00,436
Speaker 1: there's so many.

478
00:27:00,276 --> 00:27:03,236
Speaker 2: Hard parts, oh the hardest part. Yeah, though, there are

479
00:27:03,236 --> 00:27:05,636
Speaker 2: a lot of hard parts. But you know, this is

480
00:27:05,796 --> 00:27:08,676
Speaker 2: a situation where we currently don't have any way of

481
00:27:08,756 --> 00:27:12,116
Speaker 2: driving gene edits into bird species. The birds are among

482
00:27:12,116 --> 00:27:15,556
Speaker 2: the most endangered species on the planet, especially on islands,

483
00:27:15,596 --> 00:27:18,156
Speaker 2: and if we can develop these technologies of being able

484
00:27:18,196 --> 00:27:21,396
Speaker 2: to keep these germ cells alive and different species in

485
00:27:21,436 --> 00:27:23,916
Speaker 2: addition driving these edits into them, and show that we

486
00:27:23,956 --> 00:27:25,876
Speaker 2: can do this, then this is a tool that we

487
00:27:25,916 --> 00:27:30,396
Speaker 2: could use, for example, to help make Kawaiian honeycreepers resistant

488
00:27:30,396 --> 00:27:34,116
Speaker 2: to avian malaria, or drive resistance to diseases of other

489
00:27:34,236 --> 00:27:37,836
Speaker 2: bird species that are impacted by changes to their habitat,

490
00:27:37,876 --> 00:27:39,996
Speaker 2: a lot of which have been caused by changes in

491
00:27:39,996 --> 00:27:43,956
Speaker 2: the way that people have used the landscape.

492
00:27:44,556 --> 00:27:50,956
Speaker 1: And then talk about the long happy story for the dono, like,

493
00:27:51,236 --> 00:27:52,396
Speaker 1: how does that story go?

494
00:27:53,396 --> 00:27:56,756
Speaker 2: We have collaborations with the Russian government and Russian Wildlife Foundation.

495
00:27:56,876 --> 00:28:00,796
Speaker 2: This is an island country that is very proud and

496
00:28:00,996 --> 00:28:04,996
Speaker 2: very excited about doing conservation work and have an incredible

497
00:28:05,316 --> 00:28:07,556
Speaker 2: track record of success there as well. They have several

498
00:28:07,596 --> 00:28:10,076
Speaker 2: islands that are off of them mainland that they've been

499
00:28:10,116 --> 00:28:15,916
Speaker 2: doing removal of invasive species and replacements sometimes with proxy species.

500
00:28:15,956 --> 00:28:18,236
Speaker 2: For example, one of the species that went extinct at

501
00:28:18,276 --> 00:28:20,796
Speaker 2: the same time as the dodo is a giant tortoise,

502
00:28:21,316 --> 00:28:25,916
Speaker 2: and they have replaced on some of these islands. There's

503
00:28:26,076 --> 00:28:29,436
Speaker 2: an island called Round Island, another called eulok Agret where

504
00:28:29,436 --> 00:28:32,636
Speaker 2: they've put giant tortoises from Seychelles, And what they've seen

505
00:28:32,756 --> 00:28:35,876
Speaker 2: is that having these giant tortoises on the landscape have

506
00:28:36,196 --> 00:28:39,676
Speaker 2: been able to help out with their invasive species removal

507
00:28:39,716 --> 00:28:42,716
Speaker 2: programs and really change the shape and face of that

508
00:28:43,036 --> 00:28:45,996
Speaker 2: floral and faunal community. So it turns out that ebony

509
00:28:46,036 --> 00:28:49,476
Speaker 2: trees germinate better after they've passed through the digestive system

510
00:28:49,516 --> 00:28:52,516
Speaker 2: of a giant tortoise and many of the other endemic

511
00:28:52,556 --> 00:28:56,116
Speaker 2: plant species because they evolved alongside tortoises. They have anti

512
00:28:56,236 --> 00:29:00,476
Speaker 2: tortoise or bivory like really sharp little baby leaves for example,

513
00:29:00,476 --> 00:29:03,876
Speaker 2: that tortoises can't eat. So the tortoises are consuming all

514
00:29:03,916 --> 00:29:06,516
Speaker 2: of the non native species, the species that have been

515
00:29:06,516 --> 00:29:09,956
Speaker 2: introduced and leaving behind the endemics species that are now

516
00:29:09,996 --> 00:29:12,796
Speaker 2: coming back because of the replacement of this animal on

517
00:29:12,836 --> 00:29:16,076
Speaker 2: the landscape, and they hope that by replacing this other

518
00:29:16,236 --> 00:29:21,036
Speaker 2: key member of that extinct foneal community, a forgivorous bird

519
00:29:21,156 --> 00:29:24,196
Speaker 2: that had a very strange shaped face that's able to

520
00:29:24,436 --> 00:29:27,996
Speaker 2: move around and consume fruits and do similar things, I mean,

521
00:29:28,076 --> 00:29:31,276
Speaker 2: maybe not even things that we've imagined yet, that this

522
00:29:31,356 --> 00:29:35,476
Speaker 2: will will really help them to help them in their

523
00:29:35,516 --> 00:29:38,676
Speaker 2: restoration projects. One thing that's clear though, is that even

524
00:29:38,676 --> 00:29:41,276
Speaker 2: the idea that there might be a Dodo at some

525
00:29:41,356 --> 00:29:45,156
Speaker 2: point has caused a reinvigoration of the excitement of other

526
00:29:45,196 --> 00:29:48,836
Speaker 2: people for their conservation programs, and they've seen renewed investments

527
00:29:48,836 --> 00:29:51,916
Speaker 2: in creating habitats that dodos might someday be in. They

528
00:29:51,956 --> 00:29:54,436
Speaker 2: are really excited about working with us on setting up

529
00:29:54,436 --> 00:29:56,876
Speaker 2: places where we can have aviaries for some of these

530
00:29:56,876 --> 00:29:59,116
Speaker 2: early birds, because obviously we would love to have them

531
00:29:59,156 --> 00:30:02,036
Speaker 2: back there. They're Marsian animals, so they should they should

532
00:30:02,076 --> 00:30:05,876
Speaker 2: be there, And so yeah, this is it's been a

533
00:30:06,156 --> 00:30:09,116
Speaker 2: it's been I've got to go to Murcius in June

534
00:30:09,356 --> 00:30:12,316
Speaker 2: this year and interact with see some of these sites

535
00:30:12,316 --> 00:30:14,836
Speaker 2: and interact with some government officials, and the excitement for

536
00:30:14,876 --> 00:30:18,636
Speaker 2: having a Dodo and Mauritius is really palpable. It's it's

537
00:30:18,676 --> 00:30:19,676
Speaker 2: exciting to be part of.

538
00:30:19,996 --> 00:30:22,476
Speaker 1: What you're trying to do is wildly hard. It's like

539
00:30:22,836 --> 00:30:25,676
Speaker 1: kind of amazing, as you alluded that somebody was able

540
00:30:25,676 --> 00:30:28,836
Speaker 1: to raise two hundred million dollars for this very hard,

541
00:30:29,396 --> 00:30:34,876
Speaker 1: not obviously commercial project. And so I don't know, you're

542
00:30:34,876 --> 00:30:37,116
Speaker 1: in a really interesting spot, right, Like you've been studying

543
00:30:37,116 --> 00:30:40,436
Speaker 1: this at an academic setting for twenty ish years. Now

544
00:30:40,476 --> 00:30:43,876
Speaker 1: you're at this company that's that strangely amazingly has raised

545
00:30:43,956 --> 00:30:46,236
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars to do this hard thing.

546
00:30:46,556 --> 00:30:48,436
Speaker 1: Like where are you right now?

547
00:30:49,636 --> 00:30:53,196
Speaker 2: What I like about this project is that, as we've said,

548
00:30:53,236 --> 00:30:56,436
Speaker 2: as you've said here, everything that we're doing is really hard.

549
00:30:56,556 --> 00:30:56,756
Speaker 1: Right.

550
00:30:57,116 --> 00:31:00,076
Speaker 2: But as we look around the planet today, what we

551
00:31:00,116 --> 00:31:04,436
Speaker 2: see are ecosystems, species, and populations and communities that are

552
00:31:04,436 --> 00:31:09,476
Speaker 2: in trouble, And what we have is decision anxiety. What

553
00:31:09,596 --> 00:31:11,956
Speaker 2: do we do? How can we help? Where do we

554
00:31:11,996 --> 00:31:17,116
Speaker 2: even start? Right? But this project, what it forces us

555
00:31:17,156 --> 00:31:20,076
Speaker 2: to do is write down all of the steps that

556
00:31:20,116 --> 00:31:22,876
Speaker 2: we need to do to answer this really hard problem,

557
00:31:22,956 --> 00:31:25,436
Speaker 2: to get to the end of this really hard solution.

558
00:31:25,876 --> 00:31:28,676
Speaker 2: And that now that we've had them written down, means

559
00:31:28,676 --> 00:31:31,436
Speaker 2: that we can just go and start knocking them down. Right,

560
00:31:31,556 --> 00:31:34,196
Speaker 2: here's problem we have to solve. Here's a problem that

561
00:31:34,236 --> 00:31:36,436
Speaker 2: has to do with rewilding and restoration that we have

562
00:31:36,516 --> 00:31:38,436
Speaker 2: to solve. In order to solve that, there are all

563
00:31:38,516 --> 00:31:40,836
Speaker 2: of these other problems that have to do with invasive

564
00:31:40,876 --> 00:31:42,636
Speaker 2: species on the landscape that are going to eat the

565
00:31:42,636 --> 00:31:44,916
Speaker 2: dodo's eggs on the ground. How do we solve those?

566
00:31:44,996 --> 00:31:47,156
Speaker 2: Who do we partner with to solve those? It's not

567
00:31:47,236 --> 00:31:51,516
Speaker 2: all Colossal's job, right, but we do want to enable

568
00:31:51,556 --> 00:31:54,396
Speaker 2: it because we want to create an environment where we

569
00:31:54,436 --> 00:31:57,156
Speaker 2: can be successful and our partners can be successful. And

570
00:31:57,196 --> 00:32:01,116
Speaker 2: our partners are nonprofit conservation groups and governments and local

571
00:32:01,116 --> 00:32:04,196
Speaker 2: communities who want these things to happen. But by saying

572
00:32:04,596 --> 00:32:08,316
Speaker 2: we're going to do it, we've enforced you got to

573
00:32:08,316 --> 00:32:10,436
Speaker 2: write down the problem, We got to figure out how

574
00:32:10,476 --> 00:32:10,996
Speaker 2: to solve them.

575
00:32:11,236 --> 00:32:11,916
Speaker 1: And I love that.

576
00:32:12,276 --> 00:32:15,716
Speaker 2: I think that this motivation to get there is going

577
00:32:15,756 --> 00:32:18,236
Speaker 2: to solve is going to help so much as we

578
00:32:18,316 --> 00:32:20,036
Speaker 2: try to figure out what we can do as a

579
00:32:20,076 --> 00:32:24,436
Speaker 2: global community to try to stem the biodiversity loss crisis

580
00:32:24,436 --> 00:32:25,516
Speaker 2: that we're facing today.

581
00:32:28,836 --> 00:32:30,956
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute with the lightning round.

582
00:32:42,996 --> 00:32:46,716
Speaker 1: I have read that you have a tattoo of a dodo.

583
00:32:46,996 --> 00:32:48,076
Speaker 1: First of all, is that correct?

584
00:32:48,316 --> 00:32:49,156
Speaker 2: It is yes.

585
00:32:49,796 --> 00:32:51,716
Speaker 1: If you are going to get a tattoo of another

586
00:32:52,716 --> 00:32:54,636
Speaker 1: animal extinct or not, what would it be.

587
00:32:55,836 --> 00:33:01,316
Speaker 2: I promised our thylacine lead Sarah that when she delivered

588
00:33:01,316 --> 00:33:03,796
Speaker 2: a thylacine I would get a thilocine tattoo. I haven't

589
00:33:03,836 --> 00:33:06,556
Speaker 2: decided what it will look like or where it will be,

590
00:33:06,636 --> 00:33:07,836
Speaker 2: but that's that's.

591
00:33:07,636 --> 00:33:09,596
Speaker 1: Probably what's the thylacine look like?

592
00:33:10,156 --> 00:33:13,476
Speaker 2: Well look it up. It looks like it looks like

593
00:33:13,516 --> 00:33:16,356
Speaker 2: a weird stripey large marsupial wolf.

594
00:33:17,516 --> 00:33:22,476
Speaker 1: I've heard it called the Plasmanian tiger. I know us Okay,

595
00:33:23,116 --> 00:33:25,556
Speaker 1: that seems like a cool animal to get a to

596
00:33:25,596 --> 00:33:36,556
Speaker 1: get a tattoo of. What's the most dangerous or sketchy

597
00:33:36,596 --> 00:33:38,956
Speaker 1: thing you did to get a piece of ancient DNA?

598
00:33:41,556 --> 00:33:45,716
Speaker 2: The most dangerous or sketchy thing I did? You know?

599
00:33:45,836 --> 00:33:48,436
Speaker 2: I try not to do any dangerous or sketchy things.

600
00:33:48,476 --> 00:33:52,476
Speaker 2: Let's see, I have written on Russian helicopters. That's pretty

601
00:33:52,636 --> 00:33:55,436
Speaker 2: dangerous and sketchy to try to get out into the field.

602
00:33:55,476 --> 00:33:57,756
Speaker 2: We did once time one time get left in the

603
00:33:57,796 --> 00:34:00,476
Speaker 2: field for an extra couple of weeks because these same

604
00:34:00,516 --> 00:34:03,836
Speaker 2: helicopters got a better deal taking some wealthy people fishing

605
00:34:03,916 --> 00:34:06,156
Speaker 2: for a little while rather than pick up some scientists

606
00:34:06,156 --> 00:34:07,316
Speaker 2: that they were supposed to pick up.

607
00:34:08,396 --> 00:34:11,276
Speaker 1: Were you out getting mammoth DNA? What were you doing.

608
00:34:11,276 --> 00:34:15,596
Speaker 2: We're collecting just fossils from Arctic species. I've worked a

609
00:34:15,596 --> 00:34:19,836
Speaker 2: lot on muskogs and bison and horses and species like that.

610
00:34:19,876 --> 00:34:21,996
Speaker 2: So we were out just in the field collecting bones

611
00:34:22,036 --> 00:34:23,556
Speaker 2: for future work. Yep.

612
00:34:25,116 --> 00:34:28,196
Speaker 1: Yeah, we haven't talked all about dinosaurs. Are you tired

613
00:34:28,236 --> 00:34:30,796
Speaker 1: of people asking you about dinosaurs? No?

614
00:34:30,916 --> 00:34:33,756
Speaker 2: I mean it's something that people are excited about. There's

615
00:34:33,796 --> 00:34:36,876
Speaker 2: no DNA in dinosaurs, right, So the oldest DNA that's

616
00:34:36,916 --> 00:34:41,196
Speaker 2: been recovered could be escas escaviller Slav's ancient plant DNA,

617
00:34:41,196 --> 00:34:42,916
Speaker 2: which is from sediment that might be about two and

618
00:34:42,956 --> 00:34:45,396
Speaker 2: a half million years old. The oldest DNA from bones

619
00:34:45,596 --> 00:34:49,636
Speaker 2: are mammoth bones that were frozen in permafrost for more

620
00:34:49,676 --> 00:34:52,156
Speaker 2: than a million years, maybe as long as two million years.

621
00:34:52,556 --> 00:34:54,956
Speaker 2: But dinosaurs have been extinct for more than sixty five

622
00:34:55,036 --> 00:34:58,796
Speaker 2: million years. There is no dinosaur bone out there that

623
00:34:58,916 --> 00:35:02,596
Speaker 2: still is organic. They're all fossils that organic material has

624
00:35:02,596 --> 00:35:05,156
Speaker 2: been replaced. So we're not going to get dinosaur DNA.

625
00:35:05,196 --> 00:35:07,716
Speaker 1: And there's not even like a theoretical way. It's sort

626
00:35:07,716 --> 00:35:10,476
Speaker 1: of like a laws of physics of problem, like fundamental

627
00:35:10,516 --> 00:35:12,836
Speaker 1: laws of biology say, we're just not going to get it.

628
00:35:12,876 --> 00:35:15,436
Speaker 2: We're not going to get dinosaur DNA. Yeah, I've tried

629
00:35:15,516 --> 00:35:18,036
Speaker 2: even the amber thing like smashing stuff up and getting

630
00:35:18,036 --> 00:35:21,556
Speaker 2: because I answer that, yeah, of course. You know why.

631
00:35:21,876 --> 00:35:25,236
Speaker 2: You can only be asked that question at least four

632
00:35:25,356 --> 00:35:27,636
Speaker 2: hundred or five hundred times before you're like, well, you know,

633
00:35:27,836 --> 00:35:28,196
Speaker 2: I'm just.

634
00:35:28,116 --> 00:35:31,436
Speaker 1: Gonna just try it. Time some asshole asked me, I

635
00:35:31,436 --> 00:35:36,316
Speaker 1: could say I did it. It didn't work. What's the

636
00:35:36,396 --> 00:35:38,836
Speaker 1: oldest DNA that you have ever retrieved?

637
00:35:39,316 --> 00:35:42,436
Speaker 2: Me, personally working in a lab touching samples, the oldest

638
00:35:42,516 --> 00:35:45,276
Speaker 2: DNA that I've recovered is from a horse that's probably

639
00:35:45,316 --> 00:35:48,516
Speaker 2: around eight hundred thousand years old, somewhere between seven hundred

640
00:35:48,516 --> 00:35:51,756
Speaker 2: and eight hundred thousand years old, horse like animal. In fact,

641
00:35:52,356 --> 00:35:55,396
Speaker 2: we thought it was a horse, but it turns out

642
00:35:55,476 --> 00:35:58,676
Speaker 2: that it is a type of extinct donkey. Well not

643
00:35:58,716 --> 00:36:01,996
Speaker 2: even really, that it's slightly more closely related to donkeys

644
00:36:01,996 --> 00:36:03,956
Speaker 2: than it is to horses. It's in that lineage, but

645
00:36:03,996 --> 00:36:07,076
Speaker 2: it's a species that really hasn't been known to paleontology,

646
00:36:07,116 --> 00:36:08,836
Speaker 2: but now we have a whole genome from it.

647
00:36:08,756 --> 00:36:12,956
Speaker 1: So that's fun. Was one surprising thing about the Dodo.

648
00:36:13,876 --> 00:36:21,036
Speaker 2: Surprising thing about the Dodo, I guess I was mostly

649
00:36:21,076 --> 00:36:24,076
Speaker 2: surprised very early in the beginning of my experience with

650
00:36:24,076 --> 00:36:25,276
Speaker 2: the Dodo that it's a pigeon.

651
00:36:27,076 --> 00:36:29,196
Speaker 1: Well, that's a sign of a good paper, right the

652
00:36:29,236 --> 00:36:33,596
Speaker 1: side of a good finding. What's the worst thing about

653
00:36:33,836 --> 00:36:36,596
Speaker 1: winning a MacArthur Genius Grant That.

654
00:36:36,596 --> 00:36:38,436
Speaker 2: People ask you what you're going to do with the money,

655
00:36:38,556 --> 00:36:42,636
Speaker 2: Like everybody expected you're going to have something really profound

656
00:36:42,956 --> 00:36:46,356
Speaker 2: to do with the money that they give you over

657
00:36:46,396 --> 00:36:47,676
Speaker 2: the course in the next few years.

658
00:36:47,676 --> 00:36:50,236
Speaker 1: The real answer, just stop writing grants all the time

659
00:36:50,276 --> 00:36:51,236
Speaker 1: for the next three years.

660
00:36:51,756 --> 00:36:53,236
Speaker 2: No, do you know what I did with it? I

661
00:36:54,196 --> 00:36:55,396
Speaker 2: used it for childcare.

662
00:36:55,636 --> 00:36:55,836
Speaker 1: You know.

663
00:36:56,076 --> 00:36:59,436
Speaker 2: It actually made it possible for me to be a

664
00:36:59,676 --> 00:37:04,036
Speaker 2: very young mom trying to run a lab and get

665
00:37:04,036 --> 00:37:05,956
Speaker 2: myself off the ground, you know, if I was able

666
00:37:05,996 --> 00:37:08,076
Speaker 2: to use it to help my kids.

667
00:37:08,236 --> 00:37:11,716
Speaker 1: So that's actually a really interesting answer, Like it's a

668
00:37:11,796 --> 00:37:16,956
Speaker 1: really that's a really interesting answer. I know you might

669
00:37:16,996 --> 00:37:19,116
Speaker 1: not be the right person asked this question, but you're

670
00:37:19,156 --> 00:37:21,956
Speaker 1: the one I'm talking to, so you know, it was

671
00:37:22,036 --> 00:37:24,676
Speaker 1: interesting to me looking at that at the last round

672
00:37:24,676 --> 00:37:27,436
Speaker 1: of funding that Colossal got that it came part of

673
00:37:27,436 --> 00:37:29,036
Speaker 1: it came from you know what I'm gonna say, part

674
00:37:29,076 --> 00:37:32,036
Speaker 1: of it came from in q TEL, the venture capital

675
00:37:32,076 --> 00:37:35,996
Speaker 1: fund set up by the CIA. What does I know

676
00:37:36,076 --> 00:37:38,716
Speaker 1: it's not actually the CIA, But what does this CIA

677
00:37:38,876 --> 00:37:40,116
Speaker 1: VC fund want with you?

678
00:37:41,556 --> 00:37:43,316
Speaker 2: I don't think this is things I can talk about.

679
00:37:43,396 --> 00:37:45,476
Speaker 2: And actually I think you know, inq TELL are just

680
00:37:45,556 --> 00:37:48,396
Speaker 2: really interested in knowing what's happening, and they like to

681
00:37:48,436 --> 00:37:50,836
Speaker 2: be involved in things that are really at the cutting

682
00:37:50,916 --> 00:37:53,276
Speaker 2: edge of any sort of new discipline, and I think

683
00:37:53,276 --> 00:37:55,756
Speaker 2: their interest is just, you know, we want to know

684
00:37:55,796 --> 00:37:56,276
Speaker 2: what you're doing.

685
00:37:57,756 --> 00:37:59,916
Speaker 1: Fair Enough, I'm going to mix metaphors on this one.

686
00:38:00,116 --> 00:38:04,116
Speaker 1: Do you have a white whale? Like, is there some

687
00:38:04,156 --> 00:38:08,916
Speaker 1: particular species or even just technique or something? Is there

688
00:38:08,956 --> 00:38:11,196
Speaker 1: so thing you've been trying to figure out how to

689
00:38:11,236 --> 00:38:13,316
Speaker 1: do that you haven't figured out yet that you really

690
00:38:13,356 --> 00:38:14,356
Speaker 1: want to figure out.

691
00:38:16,676 --> 00:38:22,636
Speaker 2: Figure out how to make a mammoth? Now, well, I mean.

692
00:38:22,516 --> 00:38:24,556
Speaker 1: All of this. Can I end on that? Could I

693
00:38:24,676 --> 00:38:26,196
Speaker 1: end on that? Please?

694
00:38:28,996 --> 00:38:31,636
Speaker 2: We're gonna do it. We're I think we're on the path,

695
00:38:31,716 --> 00:38:34,036
Speaker 2: but it's there are definitely a lot of things to

696
00:38:34,076 --> 00:38:37,516
Speaker 2: solve still, So yeah, it's a white whale. Isn't a

697
00:38:37,556 --> 00:38:39,596
Speaker 2: white whale something that you think you're not going to solve?

698
00:38:39,676 --> 00:38:40,196
Speaker 2: I don't, I don't.

699
00:38:40,236 --> 00:38:42,436
Speaker 1: I don't really know the I mean it's from Moby

700
00:38:42,516 --> 00:38:45,596
Speaker 1: Dick and Ahab is like his whole thing is he's

701
00:38:45,596 --> 00:38:47,916
Speaker 1: got to get the white whale. I mean, it ends

702
00:38:48,036 --> 00:38:50,156
Speaker 1: up killing him, but we don't have to think about

703
00:38:50,156 --> 00:38:52,036
Speaker 1: that part. It's the thing that he has driven to

704
00:38:52,076 --> 00:38:53,596
Speaker 1: get but that he has not yet gotten.

705
00:38:53,836 --> 00:38:56,156
Speaker 2: I guess that's the right answer, you know, let's get there.

706
00:38:57,156 --> 00:38:57,796
Speaker 1: Is it a dodo?

707
00:38:57,876 --> 00:38:59,636
Speaker 2: Though for me? It might be a dodo for me?

708
00:38:59,996 --> 00:39:02,676
Speaker 1: Do you think do you think? I mean? Well, I

709
00:39:02,916 --> 00:39:04,956
Speaker 1: I We're going to get back to the semantic question.

710
00:39:05,156 --> 00:39:06,916
Speaker 1: And that's a dumb thing to end on, but I

711
00:39:06,956 --> 00:39:08,916
Speaker 1: do want to ask, like, do you think you're gonna

712
00:39:08,956 --> 00:39:11,116
Speaker 1: make it? And I know it's a dumb question, but

713
00:39:11,156 --> 00:39:15,316
Speaker 1: it's also not a dumb question, right, like one wants

714
00:39:15,356 --> 00:39:15,916
Speaker 1: to ask it.

715
00:39:16,316 --> 00:39:20,236
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know there's and I accept something that looks

716
00:39:20,316 --> 00:39:23,156
Speaker 2: and acts like a dodo, that can fit into that environment, that.

717
00:39:23,116 --> 00:39:26,476
Speaker 1: Can do like a do and it quacks. Though, do

718
00:39:26,556 --> 00:39:29,116
Speaker 1: we know did a dodo quack? Problem? Cool? It was

719
00:39:29,156 --> 00:39:29,716
Speaker 1: a pigeon.

720
00:39:29,916 --> 00:39:35,956
Speaker 2: It cools, right, it coos yeah.

721
00:39:36,796 --> 00:39:41,276
Speaker 1: Beth Shapiro is the chief Scientific Officer at Colossal Biosciences.

722
00:39:42,156 --> 00:39:45,436
Speaker 1: Today's show was produced by Gabriel Hunter Chang. It was

723
00:39:45,676 --> 00:39:49,116
Speaker 1: edited by Lyddy Jean Kott and engineered by Sarah Bruger.

724
00:39:49,596 --> 00:39:52,796
Speaker 1: You can email us at problem at Pushkin dot fm.

725
00:39:53,356 --> 00:39:55,716
Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Boldstein and we'll be back next week with

726
00:39:55,756 --> 00:40:09,756
Speaker 1: another episode of What's Your Problem As