The creation of the world’s first “biovault” was announced this week, marking a new initiative that experts have likened to a “Noah’s Ark” for the preservation of genetic material from animal species.
The milestone achievement was announced by Texas-based Colossal Biosciences, in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), revealing the creation of what has been dubbed the first Colossal BioVault and World Preservation Lab.
The effort, which is being unveiled at the World Governments Summit taking place this week, is to be permanently housed at Dubai’s Museum of the Future, and a temporary preview of the initiative will be accessible to attendees at the Summit.
“The UAE’s deep commitment to innovation, conservation, and technological advancement is truly inspiring,” said Ben Lamm, Co-Founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences, in a statement.
“Through this visionary partnership, Colossal has the opportunity to expand into a critical region and advance our mission on a global scale.”
Lamm, who in 2021 co-founded Colossal with George Church, PhD, a renowned Harvard Medical School and MIT professor and a key figure in the science of genome engineering, warns that species are being lost around the world at a concerning rate. Such realities have prompted companies like his to pursue the development of biovaults, which he describes as being “a true backup plan for life on Earth.”
“Today’s biobanking efforts are underfunded, fragmented, and often inaccessible, lacking the collaboration and international support that this crisis demands,” Lamm said this week. “Thanks to the visionary leadership of the UAE, Colossal is now creating the world’s first Colossal BioVault: an unprecedented global resource, a modern-day Noah’s Ark for protecting and restoring life on our planet.”
Colossal made international news last year with its successful genetic engineering of a pair of wolf pups—named Romulus and Remus—which offered the world its closest glimpse yet of a now-deceased species, the Pleistocene-era dire wolf. Although Colossal’s dire wolves were technically genetically engineered gray wolves, the work that went into their creation not only opens a window to viewing the world of the last Ice Age, but also led to groundbreaking genome sequencing breakthroughs and the cloning of endangered red wolf pups as part of its ongoing commitment to conservation efforts.
Of the new biovault efforts, Lamm says the company is working with its UAE partners to establish a backup for all documented critically endangered and keystone species, as well as those specific to certain regions. The effort aims to achieve this in a public-facing manner that incorporates “living labs” that offer accessibility to the public for viewing, as well as educational programs to raise awareness of issues surrounding synthetic biology, de-extinction technologies, and the broader biodiversity crisis.
The announcement of the Colossal BioVault and World Preservation Lab represents a nine-figure initiative in the UAE, which led with an initial investment of $60M it made to Colossal toward expanding the company’s earlier Series C funding round, elevating the company’s total capital raised to $615 million.
Fundamentally, with the biovault project, Colossal aims to preserve cell lines and genetic data from living organisms around the world—especially endangered species—in a broader effort toward combatting extinction. Lamm and his partners envision a global, distributed Colossal BioVault network, which the company says will back up millions of samples from more than 10,000 species.
An initial focus has been placed on 100 of the most endangered species from around the world, many of which originate from within the UAE. The inaugural biovault relies on a combination of cutting-edge technologies that range from advanced robotics to artificial intelligence and cryopreservation technologies, which allow for optimal management and storage of biological samples.
As Earth continues to face challenges from extinction, with as many as half of the planet’s species facing potentially critical population loss by the middle of the century, Lamm and his colleagues at Colossal say that a scalable backup system for global biodiversity is not only a good idea—it has become a necessity of helping to ensure the long-term protection of endangered species.
Fundamentally, Colossal’s new partnership helps the de-extinction company to advance its science-driven conservation efforts, thereby helping to ensure the protection of biodiversity while elevating ecological resilience, which it says positions the UAE as “a global leader in environmental innovation.”
“We are excited to build on this relationship and pioneering bold new solutions to safeguard biodiversity for generations to come,” Lamm said on Tuesday.
Additional information about Colossal’s groundbreaking conservation and deextinction efforts can be found at the company’s official website.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.