If extinction is permanent, can life be backed up? That question sits at the heart of Colossal Biosciences, the de-extinction startup attempting something that once belonged purely to science fiction: bringing extinct animals back to life. Known for its ambitious efforts to recreate species such as the woolly mammoth, the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger, the Dallas-based company is now applying similar technologies to a different challenge – preserving species before they disappear. WIRED Middle East spoke to CEO Ben Lamm about its latest project, what Colossal calls a “BioVault”.
A facility designed to store DNA and living cells from endangered species, the idea behind the BioVault is to preserve the biological building blocks of life before they vanish. The first one will be built in collaboration with the Museum of the Future in Dubai, where scientists hope to create a biological archive that could one day support conservation, research and even species recovery.
Inside Colossal, the idea has earned a nickname. “Internally we joke about this as kind of a Noah’s Ark,” says Lamm.
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The comparison may sound whimsical, but the motivation behind it is serious.
Biodiversity loss is accelerating globally, with scientists warning that human activity – from climate change to habitat destruction – is driving extinction rates to hundreds of times higher than natural levels; the IUCN Red List now includes more than 48,600 species threatened with extinction. “While conservation works, it doesn’t work at the speed at which we’re eradicating species,” Lamm says. Colossal’s answer is technology.
At its core, the BioVault works like a deep freeze for biodiversity.
Scientists collect DNA, tissue samples and living cells from animals and store them at extremely low temperatures. Colossal says those cells can later be converted into stem cell lines – renewable biological material that researchers can study and preserve over time.
Rather than storing a single genetic sample, the BioVault aims to capture genetic diversity by collecting material from multiple animals within a species. Greater variation can help populations adapt to disease, environmental change and other pressures that threaten survival.
Lamm describes the concept in technological terms. “Think of it as backing up life,” he says.
Watch: Palaeontologist Answers Dinosaur Questions.
In that sense, the vault treats DNA much like data centres treat information – something that can be stored and protected before it disappears. If populations decline dramatically, preserved cells could allow scientists to study species more closely or support conservation breeding programmes.
The collaboration with Dubai emerged through discussions between Colossal and leaders connected to the Dubai Future Foundation, a government-backed organisation focused on accelerating emerging technologies and future-focused research.
Lamm says he first discussed the concept with UAE officials during a meeting in Davos, where he was speaking about the applications of synthetic biology to conservation. For Colossal, Dubai offered something experimental technologies often struggle to find elsewhere: speed. “You can move with great intentionality and you can also move at great speed,” Lamm says.
Part of that environment comes from the UAE’s approach to emerging technologies. The country has increasingly adopted regulatory sandboxes – controlled environments where new technologies can be tested under regulatory supervision before full laws are written. The model has attracted companies working on frontier fields ranging from artificial intelligence to biotechnology.
Most biological repositories are hidden inside universities or research institutes. The BioVault, by contrast, will sit inside a museum visited by more than a million people each year. According to Majed Al Mansoori, executive director of the Museum of the Future, the decision to place the facility inside the museum is also deliberate. “Usually there are biobanks that are labs that are inaccessible,” Al Mansoori tells WIRED Middle East. “We want people to come and see the work that is happening.”
The disappearance of species rarely happens in isolation. Ecosystems are complex networks of relationships between plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms. When one species disappears, those networks can begin to unravel. Lamm argues that technologies like genetic preservation could eventually complement traditional conservation efforts.
If extinction cannot always be prevented, preserving genetic material could offer a form of biological backup – something future researchers might use to study species or support conservation efforts.
Bringing back extinct animals sounds impressive. However, some scientists say the reality may be closer to genetic remixing than resurrection.
Colossal’s broader mission – to recreate extinct species – has sparked a debate among scientists, conservationists and ethicists. The idea of bringing back animals that vanished thousands of years ago inevitably raises a simple question: what exactly counts as “bringing something back”?
Some researchers argue that animals produced through de-extinction technologies would not truly resurrect extinct species but instead create genetically engineered relatives built from fragments of ancient DNA.
Previous reporting by WIRED has noted that Colossal’s mammoth project, for example, would likely produce a gene-edited Asian elephant designed to resemble the extinct animal rather than a literal woolly mammoth.
Others worry that headline-grabbing biotechnology projects could overshadow the slower, less glamorous work of conservation. Conservationists point out that the most effective tools for preventing extinction remain decidedly low tech: protecting habitats, stopping poaching and slowing climate change.
Lamm argues that the criticism often comes from a small group of researchers who repeatedly appear in critical coverage of the company. “We have 260 scientists that work for Colossal… This is the hardest stuff in biology – they’re not the B team,” he says. “We work with 17 academic universities around the world – the top universities around the world,” he says. “We fund about 80 postdocs in academia and I have top scientists, including Nobel laureates, that work for me.”
He also challenges the debate over whether Colossal’s mammoth project would truly “resurrect” the extinct animal, arguing that the way scientists define species is not always clear cut.
In biology, speciation refers to the process through which populations evolve into distinct species over time. “The definition of speciation is a human construct,” he says. “I’ve got 104 mammoth genomes… ranging from about 3,000 years old to 1.4 million years old. They’re all mammoths, but they’re all very different. Which one is the mammoth?”
He argues that critics often miss the broader point of the research. “But if someone feels very strongly that it’s a woolly mammoth, great. If someone feels very strongly that it’s a cold-adapted Asian elephant using synthetic biology to engineer mammoth alleles across 1.4 million years of genetic divergence… and they want to say that, I’m okay with that.”
The larger issue, he argues, is the scale of biodiversity loss. “We’re in an extinction crisis,” he says. “We need new tools and technologies for conservation, and we should make science fun again.”
As for Colossal’s latest project in this direction, the BioVault is still in its early stages.
Initial efforts will focus on collecting biological samples from endangered species in the UAE. Over time, the project could expand to include samples from other countries across the Middle East, Africa and beyond. Al Mansoori says the long-term goal is to build a network of similar facilities working together to preserve biodiversity. “We want to have like 10 of these hubs all around the world, all working together and sharing that data,” Lamm says.
If multiple genetic archives were created globally, each could act as a backup for the others, ensuring biological material is not lost if a single facility fails. Such a network would also allow scientists to share genetic data internationally, accelerating research on biodiversity and conservation.
Whether Colossal’s vision ultimately works remains uncertain.
De-extinction technologies are still experimental, and many scientists remain sceptical that resurrecting lost species (or preserving their genetic material) can meaningfully slow the accelerating biodiversity crisis.
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But projects like the BioVault suggest a shift in how conservation might evolve in the coming decades. Instead of focusing only on protecting species in the wild, researchers are beginning to ask whether the genetic building blocks of life itself can be archived, studied and perhaps one day restored.
For now, the vault in Dubai is an early experiment in that idea – an attempt to preserve fragments of life before they disappear, and to see whether the tools of modern biotechnology can give conservation a new set of possibilities.
