First it was the dodo – now scientists want to bring the giant bear and the jumbo beaver back to life

Earlier this year, the team announced that it had successfully created pluripotent stem cells from Asian elephant skin cells, a significant breakthrough that could help create elephant sperm and eggs and ensure the survival of the species.

It could also help bring the mammoth back. Mammoths share 99.5 percent of their genes with Asian elephants, meaning gaps in mammoth DNA will be filled with the genetic material of modern elephants and Colossal will use the new stem cell lines to test the genetic changes.

Likewise, the team collected primordial germ cells (PGCs) from Nicobar pigeons to use in the repatriation of the dodo. The pigeon, which lives in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India, is the dodo's closest living relative.

“Every time I go to the lab, I am shocked at the progress that is being made,” said Prof. Shapiro.

“The Thylacine team was able to create cell lines that have more unique changes to the genome than anyone has ever been able to make before.

“And the primordial germ cells work for the pigeons – this is progressing faster than I expected. So that's very exciting and encouraging.

“It has diverse applications in the areas of human health and biodiversity, as well as in the fight against the extinction crisis.”

“Of course it's cool to think about bringing extinct species back, knowing that they won't be identical copies of those extinct species. I would like to have achieved several successful eradications in the next decade.

“But the real benefit of these technologies is that we can have them at hand and use them as one of our approaches to protecting biodiversity.”

“The ultimate goal is to make extinction a thing of the past”

The company focuses on endangered animals such as the vaquita, a harbor porpoise that is also one of the most threatened marine species in the world, the northern white rhinoceros, which is critically endangered, and the pink pigeon, a rare species found in Mauritius.

Saving a species can also help keep ecosystems healthy.

She added: “You can imagine a species that has only recently become extinct and its habitat is sort of on the edge because extinction has caused some really important components of that ecosystem to disappear.”

“So everything is kind of out of sync, and if you could create or redesign some of these ecological interactions in some way, that could actually have cascading effects across the entire habitat.”

“Of course, Colossal’s ultimate goal is to ensure that extinction becomes a thing of the past.”

The team is now delving much deeper into the past, searching for ancient DNA that could lead to the discovery of entirely new species never found in the fossil record.

In recent years, experts have found DNA fragments in Greenland that are two million years old, and it is possible that samples from even further back could be preserved.

However, Prof Shapiro said she would draw the line between ancient hominids and human ancestors such as Neanderthals.

“Hominids like Neanderthals and Denisovans were people, right? And they would need some kind of informed consent,” she said.

“In this case, I don’t think you could ask her permission. So I would probably draw the line there.”

Colossal was founded in 2021 by Harvard geneticist George Church and entrepreneur Ben Lamm.

Prof Shapiro was speaking ahead of the UK Imax release of Hunt for the Oldest DNA and the launch of The Colossal Foundation, a new non-profit organization aimed at saving, conserving and increasing endangered animal populations.