Each week we find a new topic for our readers to learn about in our AI Education column.
Over the past few months, we’ve tried to stick (mostly) to covering the fundamentals of AI here on AI Education, but occasionally we have to take a detour to write about something that’s just… well… cool!
Is anyone else a little jazzed about the possibility of seeing a woolly mammoth in their lifetime? What about a thylacine, or a dodo?
Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences is using artificial intelligence to assist what it calls “de-extinction projects” to bring the three lost species back to life. The company was founded by geneticist and biotech entrepreneur George Church and tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm.
How We Got Here
Well, Colossal’s funding announcement was buried in a lot of news, though it was widely covered. Last week the company announced a $200 million Series C round financing from TWG Global, which now puts Colossal at a $10.2 billion valuation.
The latest round of funding will be used to “genetic engineering technologies while pioneering new revolutionary software, wetware and hardware solutions, which have applications beyond de-extinction including species preservation and human healthcare,” according to a company announcement.
Yes, they’s serious: Colossal says it has over 170 scientists split between labs in Dallas, Boston and Melbourne, Australia, at it is sponsoring over 40 full-time postdoctoral scholars and research programs globally.
Colossal is applying advanced computational technology to the laboratory environment, specifically, harnessing AI to assist in CRISPR genetic engineering, using molecules to splice and edit DNA. As it turns out, artificial intelligence excels at working within the complex patterns of DNA. A year after its founding, Colossal spun-off Form Bio, computational biology software it was using to manage de-extinction projects.
What Colossal Is Doing
It all sounds a little bit—okay, a lot—like the Michael Crichton story “Jurassic Park.” The Colossal Biosciences de-extinction efforts start by recovering and analyzing preserved genetic material from these extinct species. The company now claims to have the “most contiguous and complete” genomes for three species: the woolly mammoth, the thylacine, and the dodo.
Using computational biology, cellular engineering, genetic engineering, embryology and animal husbandry, Colossal hopes to bridge the gap between a genome and a living species. In all three of the company’s flagship species, work is now proceeding to the embryology stage.
For example, in the woolly mammoth de-extinction project, the company’s first and perhaps most far-fetched attempt to revive a lost species, Colossal Biosciences is already working with Asian elephant cells to eventually create a mammoth embryo. In the case of Thylacines, it has already fertilized single-cell marsupial embryos and cultured them half-way through pregnancy in an artificial uterus.
How Colossal Uses AI
Artificial intelligence is going to come into play at several points in Colossal’s processes, but it is already being used to help create a genome for each of the company’s flagship projects. Though mammoth, thylacine and dodo DNA is available, it has often degraded over time—particularly in the case of the mammoth, which has been extinct for thousands of years.
AI helps scientists take the fragments of DNA from bone fossils and other preserved tissue and piece them together coherently, filling in the gaps from a “reference genome” built from a similar surviving species or a combination of surviving species. In the case of the mammoth, a single species, the Asian elephant, is used. In the case of the dodo, several different avian species will be used.
The artificial intelligence can then find the differences between their reference genome and their reconstructed genome, which directs them where genetic engineering will need to take place.
Why It Matters
So, having the dodo and woolly mammoth back among us sounds pretty cool—but it seems like there are a lot of problems in the world right now, why is bringing back extinct species a priority?
For one thing, Colossal believes its technologies will be immensely beneficial to species conservation, so much so that it is offering its expertise to zoos, wildlife preserves and researchers as a subscription-based service. Each of its core species can be tied to current conservation and preservation efforts, the company says, and Colossal’s de-extinction moonshots may be key to preserving the planet’s current biodiversity.
Speaking of moonshot, Colossal also positions its quest to revive lost species as a NASA-like project. Along the way, new technologies will be developed, and new applications for current technologies explored, and more spin-offs, like Form Bio, are likely. The company expects to generate new software, hardware and wetware applications at its projects evolve.
The company is already finding new real-world applications for its work outside of genomics and genetic engineering, including in biotechnology, animal behavior and species identification.
