Revolutionary technologies currently under development could potentially bring extinct species back from the dead and even reverse , a pioneering scientist has said.
But Ben Lamm, founder of Colossal Biosciences, also believes it is crucial for the world’s population to the horrendous damage currently being inflicted on the in order to pile pressure on Governments to make the necessary investments before it is too late.
With 2025 just round the corner, and gloomy predictions suggesting 50% of the world’s animal species expected will go extinct by 2050 without action, Mr Lamm told Express.co.uk there was no time to waste.
And he predicted that the combined power of and genomics set to play a critical role in protecting the planet.
He explained: “Synthetic biology can and is revolutionising our ability to address environmental challenges by using tools from genetics, molecular biology, and engineering.
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There are already advanced plans to bring back the woolly mammoth (Image: Getty)
“One example is Breaking, a plastic degradation and synthetic biology company that was gestated here at. Colossal.”
A team of scientists had discovered X-32, micro-organism which can degrade polyolefins, polyesters, and polyamides leaving behind carbon dioxide, water, and biomass.
The process, which can take as little as 22 months, works by breaking down hydrocarbon chains across different chemical structures quickly.
Mr Lamm continued: “With our synthetic genetic edits, the team is focused on making X-32 faster, more efficient, and more effective with a harmless environmental impact.”
In lab tests, X-32 started to break down paint brush bristles, fishing wire, and dental floss in less than five days, he stressed.
By contrast, if left untreated, paint bristles brushes can take 450-1000 years to decompose, fishing wire can take 600 years, and dental floss would take 80 years.
Beavers may be key to tackling the climate crisis, said Ben Lamm (Image: Getty)
Mr Lamm predicted: “This pioneering science could revolutionise the plastics crisis.”
Another challenge Colossal is working on is related to the forthcoming extinction crisis.
Mr Lamm said: “The most prominent solutions include genetic rescue where we edit the genes of endangered species to increase disease resistance or adaptability to climate change, bio-banking where we capture genetic data for future species resilience and reconstructing genomes of extinct species to imbue new traits into threatened species. This could halt, stop or reverse the extinction crisis.
“Synthetic biology’s integration with other pioneering sciences, such as AI and nanotechnology, will further amplify its positive impact.”
Outlining the techniques being developed, Mr Lamm continued: “Let’s break it down to how technology can help protect endangered species.
“At Colossal, we believe in a new conservation or conservation 3.0 approach to endangered species.
“In particular, this means focusing on genetic rescue technology solutions that include genome sequencing, CRISPR and CAS-9 editing, biobanking and cloning.”
Recent Colossal’s experts had undertaken a “genetic rescue effort” for the northern quoll in Australia, whose existence has been threatened by the invasive northern cane toad.
Mr Lamm said: “After several years of building resources from northern quoll tissue samples and introducing different genetic edits to the cells of a dunnart, our teams successfully engineered resistance in dunnart cells by introducing genetic features found in other natural predators of toads.
“The edited cells offer a 16000-fold increased resistance with just one edit to the genome.”
Nor did their ambitions end with extant speeches, he emphasised, with plans already well advanced to bring back the extinct thylacine, the last of which, Benjamin, died in a zoo in Tasmania almost 100 years ago.
He said: “The thylacine team announced two world-firsts in marsupial ARTs. First, the thylacine team discovered and optimised an approach to induce ovulation in a dunnart, which is a vital first for both marsupial conservation and thylacine de-extinction.
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This crucial technology makes it possible to control precisely when an animal will come into estrus (heat).”
The approach leads to ovulation of many eggs simultaneously which can then be used to create new embryos. Eventually, the eggs will be host for Colossal’s edited thylacine genomes.
Mr Lamm said: “In another world-first, the team have been able to take fertilised single-cell embryos and culture them over half way through pregnancy in an artificial uterus device. This is far beyond any previous attempts to grow embryos for any marsupial.”
Then there are plans to bring back the woolly mammoth, a project described by Mr Lamm as “the cornerstone of our de-extinction toolkit”.
He said: “For the woolly mammoth project specifically, we announced earlier this spring the development of elephant induced pluripotent stem cell (IPSCs).
“This first of its kind genetic breakthrough holds tremendous potential for studying cell development, cell therapy, drug screening, synthetic embryos, in vitro gametogenesis, and the use of iPSCs for nuclear transfer across all species. It’s just the beginning.”
As for climate change, Mr Lamm said he was “excited” by a number of solutions on the market which utilise synthetic biology to generate big returns.
However, he said: “There is something I always come back to: the answer to our climate crisis is not necessarily better technology but better use of the solutions we already have.
“Beavers are more effective solutions to sequestering carbon than direct air capture plants and they are basically free. In 1600, between 60 million and 400 million beavers protected 51 million acres of wetlands.
“Each acre of wetlands stored around 81-216 tons of carbon per acre. However, by 1990 there was a 100x reduction in wetland space. At a middle value, the loss of wetland space, means 7.5B tons of storage have been obliterated by hunting the beavers, draining wetlands and reshaping hydrology.”
“We think that re-populating beavers could be a more effective and more affordable tool for recreating wetlands and capturing carbon than the majority of current, estimated and predicted climate-change technology solutions.
“So, our best future might be improving the capacity of animals to survive and not destroying their lands to build questionable and extremely expensive tech.”
Extinction is currently working with government partners who Mr Lamm said are enthusiastic about
potential applications of synthetic biology to some of their most pressing nature concerns.
However, he warned: “Their biggest challenge is funding for the extinction crisis; it’s bad now but people have yet to wake up to how truly horrible it would be to lose 50% of plants and animal biodiversity.
“That would mean significant changes to our food production systems, worsening of our water resources, and major shifts in land resources, habitats and habitable land.”
He concluded: “The best way to hedge against that future is to invest in protecting and preserving our ecological resources – and that means moving beyond the conservation efforts embraced today into scientific processes and programs that we know will create and generate resilience.
“To do this, we need governments to pay attention to the crisis, to understand the breadth of solutions on the table and to fund those investments before it’s too late.”