With 1 million species at risk, experts explore how emerging biotechnologies can protect ecosystems, advance medicine, and create sustainable food systems.
At Davos, Aileen Lee of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Ben Lamm of Colossal Biosciences argued that synthetic biology should be treated as “one tool” in an “all hands on deck moment” amid interlinked crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, and inequality. Lee emphasized the need for science-based policy and legitimacy: the IUCN assessment and citizens’ assemblies point toward case-by-case decisions and “free, prior and informed consent” for Indigenous communities.
Lamm framed de-extinction less as spectacle than as a platform for building widely useful capabilities: sequencing and open-sourcing reference genomes, comparative genomics, precision editing, cryopreservation, and less-invasive cloning. He described a conservation application in Australia: a single DNA-letter change can yield “5000 times resistance” to cane toad toxin, enabling “super quolls” to counter an invasive species. He also cited cloning advances used for red wolves and “genetic rescue” to restore lost diversity after population bottlenecks.
Both addressed concerns that de-extinction distracts from habitat protection and heightens biosecurity risk. Lamm argued transparency and collaboration are essential, and that “technologies aren’t innately evil or bad…it’s their application.” He also claimed de-extinction draws nontraditional funding and public engagement: “the best recruitment tool I have is kids,” helping unlock capital for neglected issues like elephant EEHV.
Hi everyone. My name is Eileen Lee and I am the president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation based in Silicon Valley. We are the philanthropy created by Doctor Gordon Moore and his wife, Betty. Gordon. Moore, as you may know, was the architect of Moore's Law. And this is a topic near and dear to us, because the foundation's two priorities really are investing in biodiversity conservation and cutting edge research. I think we're here because we live in the shadow of the interlinked crises of nature loss, climate change and inequality. And it's an all hands on deck moment for the planet. And we need every tool at our disposal. And in today's session, we'll be taking a closer look at one of those new tools that, that I think is worth exploring synthetic biology and how it can be applied in conservation, in everything from thinking about how food is produced to how species adapt. And in this case, we'll hear from our speaker about de-extinction as something that we probably couldn't have even imagined a few decades ago. And I think it's also a topic in keeping with the spirit of the forum's theme this year, of really trying to encourage dialogue. Because in truth, while synthetic biology holds promise for conservation, it's not without controversy, with some voices having called very loudly for a ban on the use of the technology. The controversy had become so heated that the foundation decided to fund a science based assessment. The Task Force for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and then also a citizens assembly by which they could formulate a policy for how it could be responsibly used in the context of conservation. And I think where they've landed, I think, is really that we need to look at this on a case by case basis and make sure that there's free, prior and informed consent for indigenous communities who are affected by the application of the technology. It's really a fresh and emerging field. And today, we'll hear from one of its pioneering figures. And, Ben, maybe you can join me up here on stage. So Ben Lam is a tech entrepreneur and visionary leader known for founding and scaling many companies at the intersection of AI, biotech and emerging technologies. He drives innovation that bridges science and business, transforming ideas into impactful solutions with global reach. And today, we'll hear what his company, Colossal Biosciences, has been working on in terms of helping to really create what I think didn't exist a few years ago, which is the de-extinction market. Ben, so today we're going to be talking about the technologies that make these breakthroughs possible. And the role of de-extinction and conservation in our growing bio economy. Let's set the stage a little bit for our audience and talk about why we're talking about de-extinction and, and this technology and what the bioeconomy can mean here.
Yeah. I mean, first of all, thank you so much for doing this. Thanks to the web for supporting this. It's really it's really amazing. I love how you framed it. Right. Because it is one tool and we need all these tools. And a lot of times one tool or another tool gets more excitement and whatnot. And I think also highlighting the fact that there's way more inclusion than even the animals, there's the governments, the people and the indigenous people. And if we only had to work on the lab and do synthetic biology, I think it would be a lot easier. But we spend about half of our time in the field with communities on the ground, which I think is really, really important. But the reason we started the business and the reason we thought that conservation needed a new tool set, is that we saw all these doom and gloom stats, right? Which I'm sure you see all the time that, you know, scientists believe that, you know, it could be, somewhere between depending on the scientists. You ask that in the next 25 years to 50 years, we could lose half of biodiversity on Earth. Right. And and so thinking about new tools and thinking about ways that we can apply science and innovation to kind of like outinnovate the take that we as society does from environments when we're overfishing, when we're polluting the the ecosystems, when we're actually cutting down trees or even hunting and whatnot. And so, so for us, I, we thought that that de-extinction, and species preservation and new tools around cryopreservation would be really fundamental in something that we could go explore. And if we built the right business model, that allowed us to kind of open source all the technologies for conservation while and hopefully also subsidize some of its use through our foundation, we could also then apply those technologies of synthetic biology to both human healthcare and industrial use cases. So we kind of had the benefit of creating a for profit that could then subsidize all that technology for conservation. And and I love I love how you started it, because it is one technology amongst a sea of technologies that we need.
So our foundation, I think, has over the years funded some of the basic discovery tools that lead not only to work like this, but really a broad range of biotech applications. And it really is amazing, I think, how fast it's come. But I would imagine for some of our audience maybe hearing about this for the first time, it's going to sound almost like science fiction. Can you walk us through a little bit more of in language? Everybody can understand the science.
Behind this. We get a lot of the believe it or not, we hear the Jurassic Park jokes quite a bit. But ultimately, you know, one of the things that I think Jurassic Park did well, was it informed, you know, Middle America and the rest of the world that aren't in the scientific field, that there's this thing called DNA, and we as humans now have tools and technologies that we can change and manipulate it. Right. And so for us, de-extinction starts with collecting ancient DNA, analyzing that ancient DNA, doing comparative genomics with that DNA to closest living relatives, and also building all of the reference genomes that are needed that don't exist today. As someone from technology, when I came into this field, I thought, oh, we'll just log on to the like, what is the GCP cloud of of, of all species. Right. Like the 23. Like surely that's where everything I was mortified and shocked that all of these DNA, you know, because you see technologies like 23 and me and others I was mortified that that that the genomes that are full annotated genomes for all the species of life on Earth, even though we even though we have these tools and technologies hadn't been done, it was like absolutely shocking. And it's like, that should be done. It should be available for all scientists and all researchers. And so I was shocked on that. And so, so we go through the process of actually creating a lot of those genomes, open sourcing them, doing the comparative genomics, and then advancing existing tools and developing new tools to edit those gene, those lost genes in biodiversity back into living cells. And then we even have to develop tools like new forms of cloning that are less invasive to the animals, so that we can actually put them back and create species again.
So the the science clearly sounds like it's evolved a lot. And, and obviously you've been successful in bringing investment into this field. How is that translating into conservation on the ground?
Yeah. So a lot of times people will get really excited. We'll do. We were joking about this earlier. We'll do interviews and and we'll talk for an hour and ten minutes of it's about the woolly mammoth. And you know, you know the rest of the the time the 15 minutes is all about Asian elephants, the work that we're doing in Africa. But what's interesting is that that always doesn't make the headlines, mostly just the mammoth. The first ten minutes is what only makes the headlines, but we actually have more, species preservation projects than we do even conservation projects. And so for us, you know, looking at how you can use synthetic biology to solve different problems is pretty interesting. One problem that is a synthetic biology solution that we are working on in northern Australia is the quoll. If you don't know the quoll, it's this unbelievably cute carnivorous marsupial. Don't let carnivores scare you. It's it eats small, very small things. Mostly it's frogs and toads. And we got colossal. But we as humans introduced the cane toad into northern Australia. And the cane toad is is a toad that produces a neurotoxin. And both the quolls and other marsupials are feeding on the on the cane toads because they love toads and frogs. Well, they didn't co-evolve next to it next to the cane toads, so they actually do not have the same resistance to that. And so what we found is we went to South America, studied a lot of different mammals and even snakes and other vertebrates that co-evolved next to these cane toads that eat the cane toads. And we found that a single nucleotide. So just one little letter on that twisted ladder changed. Just one simple letter conferred a 5000 times resistance to cane toad toxins. And so now, after we've gone through testing with dunnarts, which are a more of a model species for marsupials, we're now working with the Australian government and others to to implement it into quoll. So think about making super quolls that could essentially clean up that environment and remove the cane toads that are having this trophic cascading effect on the entire ecosystem. And so that's one example of how synthetic biology and how this tool set together can actually can actually be applied and is being applied.
So when I hear you talk about that example, I would have described that not as de-extinction but more kind of assisted evolution.
Yeah. Directed evolution. It's directed evolution using the technology. Right. And so so it's like all of the de-extinction is a systems model. Right. So every every technology that we have to develop on that path is directly applicable, like one of the other projects that we're working on for the Direwolves was we actually, you know, wolves are endangered and they they go on and off the ESA in the US, depending on different, outcomes in the, in the office. But, but a lot of times they're endangered. And so we didn't want, we wanted to find out what is the best way to work with wolves. Well, we actually invented a new way of cloning that has a very high efficiency by isolating what's called endothelial progenitor cells, EPCs in the blood. It's also great for cryopreservation because they're partially differentiated cells. It's also massively non-invasive. We're supported by, humane global and others. So animal welfare is at the core of everything that we do. And so that technology is now being used to clone red wolves. And we're also using some of the same tools for the coal to engineer in lost genetic diversity, so that when you have population bottleneck, you can apply these tools in that data that you use from computational biology to engineer a more diverse founder line that can be applied back into the wild.
So when I hear you talking about it that way, it reminds me of how in our science program, we often look for opportunities to do a particular research project that's going to drive the tools forward, because we know that'll let us keep pushing the frontier of discovery. And I hear you saying that, you know, de-extinction is sort of a lever that brings interest, that lets you do that. What would you say to those who say that a focus on de-extinction risks diverting resources from efforts, right, that keep existing species in ecosystems intact? And I have to admit, sometimes I wonder, what is it even mean to say that we're bringing back a species whose habitat and ecosystem niche don't even exist anymore, right?
Yeah. So we try to focus on there's a lot great comment slash questions. There's there's a lot to unpack there. So first on the habitat, we try to spend a lot of time when we because we have our flagship de-extinction projects. And then we have all of the application of those technologies into conservation. And so what's interesting for us is we try to only focus on species that meet certain requirements. We spend a lot of time with local governments, a lot of times with indigenous people groups. Some of the projects that we're working on have a cultural and spiritual application, like our our Tasmanian tiger or thylacine. It's part of the origin story for the Aboriginal people of Tasmania. So if you don't be inclusive in that process, outside of science and conservation, I think it's a big miss. And so, so, so first we only focus on that and then all the species that we're working on, their ecosystem still exist or exist in some form. Right. So sometimes people get confused on the woolly mammoth because they're like, oh, I've seen Ice Age. And you know, I've heard Ray Romano talk. It's cold. It's it's freezing. And, and and that's the way it looks. But but what sometimes people don't know because we're in the Holocene. During the Pleistocene there were interglacial periods that were as warm and warmer than today. And mammoths had insane migratory patterns. Right. And so what's interesting is that some of our partners with Asian elephants in northern Canada, we actually have them. They actually have them where in the winter months, they'll go out and swim in ice lakes and play in the snow. And you think, but an Asian elephant is supposed to be a warm, tolerant, a warm. So a lot of these de-extinction projects create opportunities to educate. And so for us, while de-extinction gets a lot of the headlines, it also I'm a data guy. It also brings from the data we've seen it's bringing more investment into conservation from non-traditional means. So a lot we have about 75 different conservation partners through our foundation. We've also raised $100 million for our foundation. And what's interesting about that is it's so exciting that not only do kids love it and parents love it, about a third of our this is kind of insane. A 30% of our investors came to us because their kids told them about it, which is insane. It's like it's like, so the best recruitment tool I have is kids, right? And so even some of our biggest critics, kids love it. And so it's it creates an interesting, I think, dichotomy in people's houses. But but but so it does bring excitement. It does bring awareness. It does bring the sense of wonder. And I think we've lost that in America and in many parts of the world. And so this is showing from the data that we're bringing in new money into conservation. One of the projects we work on is called Eehv. It's it's a herpes virus that kills more elephants than poaching or anything. But what's crazy about it is ever since colossal launched and started working on it and talking about it more, all of our elephant conservation partners, which are the top in the world, say that their funding support for Eehv has gone through the roof where they couldn't even raise money about it before.
So obviously, on the one hand, that is definitely getting at something that's critical for that species. It's maybe also touching on the territory with synthetic biology that makes people the most uncomfortable in the sense that if you are, you know, introducing a large, charismatic mammal back into the wild, you can monitor it, you can track it, you know exactly where it's going to go when you start talking about engineering things at the microbial level. Right. It's a little bit harder. So how do you think about that in terms of safeguards. And I recognize that, you know, a lot of this gain of function and other research is happening irrespective of what's going on.
Yeah, I.
Mean conservation.
And I think we're leading the charge. Right? A lot of people are doing like a couple edits in the lab. You know, I think we blew people away when we had eight edits, not over eight generations at one time in our in our objectively cute woolly mice. I think we did the same thing with the Direwolves with 20. We now are doing north of 100 edits with with in one delivery, which is, I think it's pretty impressive, with over 90% efficiency, which is truly incredible. And so, so for us, I think those safeguards are being thoughtful. I don't think that de-extinction and synthetic biology are solutions. It's not a catchall, as you kind of opened with. Right. It is a technology set, right. People are using content like the concept of gene drives is getting more and more popular. People are looking at how you can actually engineer, specific species to remove invasive species, which is a multitrillion dollar global problem around the world. And so so I think that a lot of these things are really educational opportunities. I think a lot of these things are fear based opportunities. You know, people have already deployed, you know, talk about putting the genie back in the bottle. People have even, successfully deployed genetically modified mosquitoes, right. Which are much, much harder to control than a multi-thousand pound animal. Right. And so, so I think I think that the biggest opportunity, around this is, is really, education. I think the more transparent we are, the more collaborative we are, and we show the results. I think we will buy in, you know, like, there was the anti-gmo craze for a long time. Right? But we also want to feed the world. There's, you know, we there was a time, most people don't realize this, but we've been doing genetic modification for quite some time. We've just been pretty slow and bad at it. And we've been kind of doing, like, Dungeons and Dragons style rolling the dice. Now we're trying to use precision editing so we know exactly what we're doing. And so, so I think that that educational moments and maybe some of these big flagship species will open the door and kind of be that gateway drug into the sciences, where they can understand more. And, and we're seeing that in the data, which is at this stage, which is pretty interesting.
Yeah. I think the I mean, I think the education and the awareness and really the grounding in science with something like the IUCN policy has been so important in terms of framing how this can be used responsibly. I will say the other thing that I think is always important in this is who decides, right? So it's one thing to say that science tells us here are the risks, here are the benefits. It's another thing to say who should make those decisions. I'm curious, how should we be thinking about governing choices like this and how do we do it? I guess most importantly, in a way that increases the excitement and trust in science as opposed to, you know.
Yeah, we have to we have to break down these these rules or these walls in science. Right. Like science in the last ten years have become, you know, almost seen as, like scientific elite. And they're like, they're in this corner and whatnot. And we have to break that down. And, you know, I got a lot of flack once because I said, look, people, average people that are not scientists, that are just getting up and doing their job and going home to their family. They love science, but they hate scientists. And that got me a lot of feedback. But but it's true in many regards, right? It's because it's because it is a communication and it's a difference of communication. But everybody wants the same thing. Everybody wants this abundant world with healthy ecosystems, with with food security and water security and animals in a biodiverse, rich thing we even find in the US, in Congress and in the administration, that both sides agree that an abundant world is a better world. And so I think that that it's not for colossal to decide. I think our job is to make the tools available and then work on a case by case basis. So before we worked on the MOA, which is an awesome, awesome species, we spent a lot of time in New Zealand. We spent a lot of time with the Nai Tahu people of the Maori. We got their blessing and buy in. So that's outside of the ecological people, outside of the conservation people. We went and worked specifically, you know, with the people that it's a part of their taonga, it's a part of their a part of the sacred animals that they are stewards of and that and that, that they own. And then we move to government, then we move to starting to talk to ecologists and conservationists. And then we looked at the ecosystems as what exists, what can exist, what can work. Right. So we go through that process, and that's on a one case basis, case by case basis. But for us, colossal doesn't feel like that's our responsibility or our right. We also don't feel like we can solve all of those problems. That's why we started the foundation and all of the technologies that we develop and all the use cases. We open source for conservation and say other people should go apply this. Like, I don't know how to go apply this exact technology today in Hawaii to save the Honeycreepers people have opinions on it and people should do it. I don't know if that's going to be something that we do even though they've reached out to us. That may be something that we just empower others to do, kind of from like an open source model. But I do think that you've got to have local governance. I do think, and we work very closely with IUCN, we work very closely with the Species Survival Commission. I think Vivek is incredible. I love the new CEO. I think he's fantastic. And we're highly supportive of them, even though they don't agree with everything they were doing. But we can't be afraid of technologies, right? We have to, you know, technologies aren't aren't innately evil or bad. It's their application in synthetic biology. And genome engineering is moving at such a quick clip. And we know that the current rate of extinction is faster than what conservation currently can support. So I just I'm a big proponent of being the developer of the tools, but we really want to be the empower of the community to use the tools however they see fit.
So what do you think? What's it going to take.
To grow that community? Right. So you've got this open resource. It sounds like in New Zealand you have a good example of anchoring the work in free prior and informed consent. Right. What are the ingredients that are going to make this.
Accessible ones easy? I think it's just continued education. I think that words are interesting, but actions speak louder than words. I think how we went from having zero conservation partners to 75 conservation partners, and how we've been able to raise $100 million separate of our capital for colossal, for our foundation, is because we we, we put our money where our mouth was. We went and showed the application of these technologies in real time, how they can how they could solve a couple of use cases. And then those ideas and those actions sparked more people to get excited about it and then trust it. And then, when we and I think that the best thing that colossal ever did, is that we had a policy of running towards informed critics. I say informed key because you still have absolute morons that sit on the couch that don't know anything, and that have an opinion on everything. Right. But we but, like, you know, our chief science officer, Beth Shapiro, she was one of our biggest critics when we launched the company. She wrote a book that said that that's entitled How to Clone a mammoth. And spoiler alert, I don't want to ruin any book people here, but it ends with you can't. And I was like, she's perfect. And so that that is, I think that we've had this attitude of that like, we are not the smartest people in the room. Let's go find and collaborate with them. And when we're doing something wrong and they give us feedback and they are an informed critic, we go to them and say, what can we do better here? And so so I think it takes this open dialogue, which is perfect for this year's forum. I think it takes that open communication and open dialogue. I think that is more important for the buy in than the technology advancement.
Yeah, well, I always count it a successful forum when I've learned something that's changed my mind a little bit. And I have to say one thing, as you and I were talking before the session, you know, as I shared, we spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to bring a little bit more resource to these conservation projects on the ground. Right? Because we're just, you know, it's so under-resourced relative to the challenges that we're facing. And it's been an uphill battle. And yet, I was surprised to learn that, you know, as you said, de-extinction and the work that Colossal's been doing appears to be a gateway for tapping into a whole different set of capital investment for this. You know, what's the why? What do you think is is working that's causing resources to flow in?
So I think it's I think it's kind of three major things that at least at least as it relates to colossal, not the broader industry. I think number one is I think that it does inspire excitement and imagination. You know, I think that I think that's part of the reason why when we talk to journalists, they don't cover the conservation stuff, not not in a negative way, because that's like feel good TV. That's like, oh, we saved a kitten in a tree type stuff. I think that they get the excitement from kind of the big headlines. So. So I do think it drives excitement and creates a sense of wonder and whatnot that then once it makes people want to lean in versus lean back. So I think that's the first thing. I think the second thing is that when we've had people lean in and then you can show people the, the, the effects of the technologies in near real time. And what you can see today, I think it gets people excited and gives people hope. I was at the Aspen Institute speaking, last year, and I was terrified. This gentleman's speech talking about how with the 24 hour news cycle and with us constantly preaching doom and gloom to our kids that it's not spurring them to action, you'd think, oh, they want to go take the hill and win. They don't. They actually shut down in every single psychological study shows that data. And that's terrifying. And so we've got to give these quick actions and quick wins about hope that get people excited. And then I think the last thing is that, you know, as you build that trust with the community and as you build that trust and communication with a broader, community of the world versus the community within conservation, bringing them together, which is great because we get so many people calling and saying, oh, we want to invest in we want to do this. And we say, oh, we're not taking investment. But what you should do is let us connect. What species are you excited about? Can we connect you? Like, let's put people in the field so that they have a a tangible connection. Right. And so we've done that with a handful of conservation partners around the world, where we're now getting citizen activists into these communities.
Yeah. So it sounds like you've had already a pretty big journey.
And we're just getting started.
Yes. Well, so so what's next? What's next?
So so my biggest, so so we will have, you know, we're working on several big flagship species, the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, dodo and moa. There may be other species. We kind of surprised people with the whole direwolf thing. Maybe other species that come along the way. And then another big area that I'm passionate about is that whole genetic rescue side. Right. Like, how do we go build out, you know, no one has really I think a lot of really great teams around the world have been doing biobanking. But how do we create? Kind of. But it's been very fractured and massively underfunded. So how do we create new ways and models around Biobanking creating bio vaults, the equivalent of the seed vault? How do we bring those communities together? How do we put some of that pressure on countries to do that for their own fauna? Right. And so so how do we do that? How do we then make that data, get that data, make it accessible? So I think another big thing that I'm focusing on, and I'm pushing the, the foundation is to, to focus on is how do we go support. Biobanking. And looking for some of those, you know, backups for those critically endangered species.
Yeah. Well, I have to say, I know we're almost at time, but, so this has been an interesting, to have this conversation with you and, you know, the backstory of the foundation's work in this area. So we had supported Beth Shapiro's basic research many, many years ago. Honestly, with a vision just towards unlocking new science, not necessarily knowing where it would go. On our conservation side, there were sometimes some real concerns about where was it going. I think it's been so important that the, the broader community has had a chance to come together around science based policy for what is the framework for putting these things out into the wild. And I think, importantly, I'm hopeful that the citizens assemblies are not the only way. But certainly there have been good models of engaging people on how the technology should be used and where it should be used. Ben, I don't know if you wanted a last word before.
No, I agree, I totally agree with that because to your point, the wonderful women and men in the field doing the hard science are massively underfunded. And then you have this massive separation where you've got like, you know, we also know that $500 a plate black tie dinners where 5% of that money goes to conservation also doesn't work. And so, so, so finding ways to get new technologies and money directly to these incredible people in the field is what I think will be the only chance we have at reversing this crisis.
Yeah. Well, so I'm really glad that the forum decided to take on this topic. Because I have to say, also out on the promenade, out in the Congress hall, a lot of the discussion focuses on AI as the disrupter. But I sometimes wonder if when we're looking back at this moment, 20 years from now, we're not going to realize that we weren't talking nearly enough about the biological quantum, chemical engineering tools that, when paired with AI, are going to have real world changing potential. And I think getting that application right is really going to be about the thoughtful governance and, the trust in science and the dialogue that the forum really, I think, is designed to bring and bringing all these parties together. So I've really enjoyed coming together in the spirit of dialogue, and I hope we can find ways to work together on. conservation on the ground.
We're super excited.
All right.