# Transcript: Resurrecting the Future: The Viral Rise of De-Extinction **Date:** March 13, 2026 · 10:00 PM **Session:** [Resurrecting the Future: The Viral Rise of De-Extinction](/sessions/2026-03-13/pp1150668-resurrecting-the-future-the-viral-rise-of-de-extinction) ## Summary Ben Lamm (Colossal Biosciences CEO) and Julian Volgan (Rolling Stone CEO) discuss how Colossal is bringing extinct species back through genetic engineering while building a brand that makes science accessible and exciting. They cover their storytelling strategy, celebrity investor engagement (Tom Brady, Peter Jackson, George R.R. Martin), the mRNA vaccine for elephant herpes, and the ethical case for pursuing de-extinction as a conservation tool. ## Topics `de-extinction` · `synthetic biology` · `conservation` · `brand storytelling` · `colossal biosciences` · `genetic engineering` · `crispr` · `woolly mammoth` · `science communication` ## Key Takeaways 1. 30% of Colossal's investors discovered the company through their children — making science culturally exciting creates organic investment pipelines that no pitch deck can replicate. 2. Colossal's mRNA vaccine for elephant herpes (EEHV) could save more elephants than all conservation efforts combined if deployed globally — a direct spinoff of de-extinction research. 3. The company competes not with other scientists but with pop culture for attention — their branding strategy merges 'Harvard rigor with 80s MTV energy' to make science accessible to the masses. 4. Celebrity investors like Peter Jackson provide far more than capital — Jackson opened doors to New Zealand's Māori people and government for the moa de-extinction project, enabling cultural partnerships no money could buy. 5. Genetic engineering has accelerated from celebrating single gene edits to performing 100+ simultaneous edits — putting de-extinction within practical reach for the first time. ## Full Transcript Hello, everyone. You you. Thanks for joining us today. I am Julian volgan. I'm the CEO of Rolling Stone. I'm here with Ben Lamb, the founder and CEO of colossal. Did you leave that video? So before we get, before we get into the meet them conversation, you're the world's first de extinction company, yeah, we're still trying to figure it out. I mean, we saw this thing in Georgia, this vision that, you know, we're losing species at a crazy clip, right? We're gonna lose up to 50% of biodiversity in the next 25 years. How can you solve that? Right? You know, we're slowing the rate of extinction through policy and the conservation. We're just getting slower and slower and slower slower, right? And so there's just more happenings on this planet. So we need new tools and technologies. And so he had his crazy vision that's like, maybe we can bring back species and then leverage that to subsidize technologies that could then be applied conservation. I don't know anything about biology or conservation, so I'm perfect and and as we just saw with that, with that sizzle reel, storytelling seems to be something that's pretty important to the brand. It's, it seems like very intentional How. How do you think about that? Well, we spend a lot of time thinking about how incredible science and incredible like feats of strength in science, a lot of times, just gets, like, buried. So, like we would, in the first year before we started this business, actually went to all these different labs, right? We work with about 17 labs. We fund, you know, we fund about 100 post docs in labs, right? We fund 17 different top universities in the world have been incredible academics, and so actually travel around before we start the business, talk to a lot of people. And I saw the craziest stuff, crazy problems. It was interesting. Problem, right? Genetic engineering, CRISPR and all these everyone thinks about mostly as it relates to human healthcare, the application of these technologies way broader and more powerful than just human health care. And so, you know, we saw that, you know, this incredible work that's being done in academia and in some industries is just lost to the general public, and so we wanted to change that. And you know, we're tuning in our ways. Sometimes we get feedback from some of those groups that are like, this is too much, but nobody you want people to care. We want to we want to inspire the next generation to want to be you invent the next thing that then someone can take to market and so, so that is very, very important to us. Obviously, the science and the impact is important to us. The value is important to us because we have shareholders from private company. But you know, the inspiration to that next generation is there, and when you know this, you see everyone's done. So it's like, we're in the attention economy, right? Like we're in this place where it's like we like, I think when I when we make decisions, like on media like that, like our interview real, it's like, how do you make science for the masses? How do you take it out of this, like, elite conversation and make it for the masses? And how do you do it in a way that, like, you know, parents and kids and everyone can have and enjoy that conversation? I made a joke that we don't compete with conservationists or scientists. We compete with the Kardashians because we want people to get excited about what we're doing. And right now, kids are on these next gen platforms talking about pop culture, talking about your world, right? And so how do we get them to care about conservation? How do we get the science and understand these insane breakthroughs where they wake up and say, oh my gosh, I want to do that. I don't want to make a reality show when I grow up. I want to do that. And do you feel like? That's a long answer, no, but I feel like, do you feel like the, you know, the concept of inspiring the next generation? I feel like, at least when I was a kid, and even my parents were kids, you know, the future always. The concept of inspiring the next generation. I feel like, at least when I was a kid, and even my parents were kids, the future always looked so exciting, right? And like innovation was strewn throughout our society. And it feels like now that is not necessarily dominated. It feels like it's coming back a little bit. But how do you think about that? I think that we all sat around and go, kid, and we were like, we met. Everyone was out of content. And we're like, what do we do now? Right? And so I think that was just like the moonshot. I think covid was a really great kind of, like, resuscitation of people wanting to go. Focus on moonshots. You see the great work that you know, SpaceX and others have done, everyone, regardless of what people think money on. You see these two rockets land, who will have it come back? It's pretty amazing, right? Wow. That's possible. This is possible, right? And so, so I think that that moonshot thinking is here, and we try to, you know, do the best we can to pair it with, like, pop culture and tell those stories in interesting way. It's still like 95% science and colossal and 5% fun, but at least we try to make that 5% pretty loud. Well, I also feel like adoption of new technologies is never guaranteed, and storytelling is it's the key to people understanding things right. It can be the true divorce. And by the end, it's not something that I believe that everybody gets right. Like, you could want to tell stories, you could want to create content, and it's and, you know, the way people create content and the things that break through today, it's changing a lot. I feel like you guys have been pretty good at it, and it always seems like you really know how to nail like the moment, right? I feel like the wooly mice is a very interesting example of like, capturing the hearts and minds of the internet in a way that felt like it helped the perception of the company yeah Chip and Dale. And there are many, many siblings that are not all named the Yeah, you know, we tried to do it. And we try to show demonstrable progress in science, demonstrable impact of that science to today and conservation others. And then we try to pair them, you know, in ways that can relate through a pop culture lens. And you know, we actually have, I should know the number, I don't. We actually have a lot of celebrity investors. So none of them are like, you know, there's you'll never see on consult, like, at the bottom, like, and I was like, this endorsement, right? We don't have that, right? And so what's crazy is the, I think a lot of it feels very natural and authentic, because it's natural and authentic, right? So it's like, people come to us and engage, which is crazy. I said this in tavos, but 30% of our investors come from their kids. I think that's I think that's a testament that we're doing at least 30% right, right? What do you mean by 30% of our investors found out about us, not from like a headline, like someone like you, but from their kids. So 30% of our investors for our for profit came from their kids, but like Tom Brady, and Tom reached out to us because of his kids. And he's like, my kids are talking about this. We reached out to a future friend of ours. We got on the Zoom, or got on space time and and he loved it. He's been super engaged, right? And, you know, if we've had conversations and and cool, like facetimes with some our scientists and kids, he's visiting the lab. And what's great about that is, like, you know that that's authentic, right? And you know, another one is, people know that Peter Jackson made a big investor in an company, but Peter came to us because his partner, Fran, because his like as a young child was like, promised. And he said, I was promised jet packs and like, moon missions and all the stuff, where is all that, right? And he felt like this was the first thing that he could, he did, this is his worst was like, this is the first thing that I really felt was like delivering all that stuff I read about in comics when I was a kid, and but, but separately, it's not just like him writing a check, or Tom writing a check. They're they're very like they lean in in a new way, right? Like we colossal would not be able to work on the MOA, one of our flagship species, without Peter Jackson, not without his money, and we do without money, but because he opened the door to the government, he opened the door to the museums there. He got us with the naitaw and the Maori people, right? These, this is a part of their tongue and their sacred species. We would never think to go work on a species unless we gone through it and worked with all of the digital representation people. And they own that. That's part of their culture and their history, right? And so, like we buy I don't have relationships with the Maori man. We do now, but at the time, I've never made relationships with the Maori and Peter's like, come to New Zealand, spend time with us and and we went, we did many, many trips, and spent so much time, did ceremonies with them and whatnot. And it's massively rewarding. And then when we tell the stories, it's authentic, right? Because it's not Peter, it's not like we're putting Peter Jackson in the lab coat and grinds him around, and he's like, Peter Jackson's digging in caves for MOA bones with Maui. Like, that's amazing. That's incredible. That's way cooler than a movie. Yeah, it's real life. A lot of these things, yeah, but a lot of a lot of these things, you know, the people that you're talking about, like, they're, you know, even you know, George R Martin the direwolf. Like, you know, they thought about these things, they built these worlds in their minds, and he cried. That's, but that's super sick, right, from like, a moment perspective, like, like, like, not even I take away the announcement stuff like the Darrell, like, this first zoom I had with him, I got on the phone, and I was like, You don't know me. And now, like, and he's actually, he's actually the only one we pursued, but not to like, give him anything, just we felt like, if we're gonna be authentic, you should probably get someone's like, is he seeing this? I'm like, oh, we should do this. And so we got on a zoom, and I said, Look, you don't know me. And why Google? And we didn't like, that's how the meeting started, like we didn't really talk, and I put him there, he teared up to his last song. And was like, I know exactly what I'm looking at. And I was like, We want you to come see him. And he's like, one of very few people. It's a cool moment, right? Like that. Like, take away, you know, if you're fans of Game of Thrones, take away. Like, pop culture with science. It was a cool moment for him, right? And so it's something. One of my favorite parts about this company is that, like, I get sometimes this opportunity to be in the seat, to have those moments to see this guy. It's affecting so many people with his storytelling. So we'll get excited about the universes he's created into be able to give him this one unique thing, like, everyone is like, George or Martin do anything once they'll write, it's like, but be able to do that and like him to have this, like, personal moment, run his wife Paris out. It was, it was cool. It's like, it's very rewarding. It's the art, art of the impossible, right? Like, that inspiration that you're talking about. Like, I took my kid to see a rocket launcher Cape Canaveral, just because I wanted him to see, like, everything. Vibration and see it. Yeah, it's amazing. How do you good? Good kind of segue into, how do you think? How do you think about request? Actually, I don't us ago. Were like, and then that was like, I was like, we have just like, a breakthrough around around elephant herpes, and I was trying to talk about elephant RVs. This is the right crowd for elephant RVs and and how excited we were. And that's fantastic. But about the Pikachu, like, like, even it just became a thing. And so when I work at Pikachu or unicorn, bummer, that was it makes people sad. It actually, really makes that job. Can you do it right? And then people like, throw memes from grass Park and like, Hey, should we do it? And then we look at it and say, you know, we've got, we have the abilities to do it. Here's the cultural impact. Here to, like, maybe there's an indigenous people, group of people that have a connection to it. Here's the ecological impact. Here's the benefit to how I can advance, kind of, our tech tree thing and, like, video games for conservation. And then, you know, what are the, what's the cultural aspects? Like, you know, is there a societal impact, right? Like, you know, Darrell was in. That was big one on the darrells, right? Because it's like, wolves are under attack. Wolves are the most endangered. Wolves in the world. Are the American resident, which is stupid. So, like, when you think about Americana and you think about the old days and the Old West and all these things and like and what that looked like, people think about like bald eagles and bears and wolves. Wait, the American Red Wolf, the only wolf that's only endemic to America, is critically endangered with 17 left. And you're like, wait, we're a nation with all these resources. And by the way, that's not one administration's fault. That's every administration's fault, right? And so it's like, that seems to be a bipartisan thing, that we should save an American icon, right? And so we're like, oh my gosh, we can develop technologies and bring awareness to the red wolf program. We try to save the Red Bull program. It will force administrations to listen to us, to talk about conservation around at least just red wolves. And then, you know, I don't want to sell anybody out, not George R Martin, but other people in the Game of Thrones cast did not know that dire wolves were not just visible creatures, that they were real. So it's an educational moment, because if they didn't know, we assumed a lot of people didn't know. I'm actually a lot of people don't know so and opportunity to have a conversation they were misclassified. People thought there were because at the time the data that people had thought they were jackals. And so there's opportunities to educate even some of that crowd and create lots of conversations around it. And we thought, yeah, it's also a big predator. So like, ask any people, what's that scared that'll create conversation around, you know, rewilding. And so we just thought that there's a lot to it, and we're not afraid of the scientific challenge. We're not afraid of the policy challenges and the public dialog challenges. Question kind of time back to the brand and the content and the storytelling aspect of it feels like the brand has this like cyber punk rock vibe. It's hard a reflection of your taste or just what you thought would fit the weird. No, I don't even take the we wanted to create, this is probably gonna show up somewhere. We wanted to create, like Harvard, from like an authenticity and a science and rigorous perspective. So we're doing totally art, right? Like I said, 17 university partners, 100 plus postdocs, 260 scientists at colossal. So one to have that. But we also wanted, like, mash it up to, like, 80s MTV, like, like, TRL, like, that's not like, 16 to pregnant. Like, we wanted to, like, knit like, we really wanted to, like, go, like, like the best thing you never talk about old school brands earlier. Take that and, like, merge it in with with Harvard, so you get the scientific rigor and the credibility that comes with people like, you know, Andrew pass and be Shapiro, George Church and others, but at the same time, do it in a way that's like fun and full of like we're creating life, like, make it fun, make it full of life. And so if we spend a lot of time trying to be brand consistent, when you see the lab people, so, so even the labs I so we did Create a sub range, everything's very consistent with, with colossal. We didn't even talk about this, but this is the public good was kind of fun, like, and you'll see this in the lab, like, everything's like, brand new colossal. It's all you know, it like, I've, over the years, built a lot of technology companies. I've been fortunate enough to go to a lot of technology companies. I know how many of you have gone to an office and you're like, that we wanted to, we have, we've hired the best women and scientists in the world because of the most advanced tools. We want to do it awesome where every day they can be like, fuck. This is incredible. Not just the mission in our company, but like, this is the space. We wanted to create. That space, right? So our level, like no other level one that I've seen, and pretty weird, but it feels exactly what you think it was, right? Which is cool, but then we have a secret conference room, and it's the dire we name. We did name all of our conference and efforts and species and our dire wolf conference room. You'll see it. I won't spoil it, but it's a sub brand, so like, when we launched it, and we're like, Googling wolves. It's like, there's this, like, Wolf culture, like, like, it's like, it's like, what you think? You just buy a truck stop, right? It's like, it's amazing. It's like, purple lightning and like, like, six wolves and like that aren't, don't match, like moons, and it just, it's ludicrously over the top. So we created, as a joke, a handful of these, like, sub brand wolf T shirts are massively aggressive and saying people lose their mind. But that was so, so even that we try to have some intentionality in our art teams. Like, we should, we should, like, take into account like, Wolf culture and like, what is? What are the people that like, love wool, but what do they wear? Well, that's actually one of the things that I've heard you say that I really, I really think is special when, when you are talking about some of the species that are interesting to bring back, like a lot of species have, or six species have cultural significant identity to indigenous tribes across the world. And that that was one where I thought, I thought that was, like, a really interesting take on, you know, on how you can, like, kind of bring some value back into the world in there also, like, interwoven into pop culture, like in areas that we don't know, like, like, I'd say, like, 80% of stuff that we do, we learn from the public. So, like, when we were in New Zealand with the Maori, right, like, we're sitting there with Kyle and one of the top my Maori Naita, who, he's part of the Naita tribe, and he's part of the research center, and goes out catalogs, culture, wow. And he said, Where is like? And he's like, pulling me aside, he goes, you know, we're the only species that's been Superman. And I was like, Luz, sure, I'll double click. Like, what does that mean? And he's like, he's Superman fought a moment. And, you know, Superman almost lost to a MOA. I was like, can't be real. Like, I'm just saying, like crazy, insured on my back, and I looked it up, and I was like, in like, 1968 or something, there's a comic where, like, someone had a plot in the comments, and it is, and we got into, you know, they're like, $6 on eBay. So I was like, wow. So we bought a bunch of them, and then we like, and then, like, I we had our we took a frame, we shot, we sent it to the Navi people, right? And they loved me, because they're like, you know, it's a lot like, $6 for the framing. The framing is like, you know, 100. They loved it. They're like, this is and they now have it research. And they're like, hung up, but they're like, so proud that this awesome creature that they love, like, fought Superman in the 60s. Yeah, the cultural significance of the technology that you're creating has a lot more potential for momentum than, you know, than other types of tech companies, but, but I but kind of like getting into that a little bit the what you're creating feels like Jurassic Park level, like, What? What? What, like, what made you feel like what made you feel like it was important to bring this technology? You know, we get a lot of feedback, and one of them is about dressing our means. We've seen this play out movie. We have one of the opportunity is educate people to dress bar for the movie, real dystopian movie designed to entertain us. So that's a good opportunity for us. But you know what dress bark? One of the many things did right was it educated the world and taught like everyone, like there's this thing called DNA and humanity and scientists have the ability to manipulate it. And there's many scientists in genetics that chose to be scientists because going to genetics, because of Jurassic Park, not because they necessarily wanted to omega dinosaur, but they thought that that's just great, cool technology, and it was inspiring. And that technology, like, the movie came out and spilled stuff about, like, like, right? As, like, the technology was within reach, like, it was nowhere, like, near there. Chris President discovered, like, it wasn't there, but it was close enough, right? It wasn't like a sci fi movie about, like, faster than, like, travel and stuff like that, right? It's like, it was like, it's almost here. And I felt like it felt almost tangible. And I think that people were like, reading the genome, and then eventually people knew it would be able to edit the genome, and then eventually be able to write the genome, right? So I feel like it was the right movie at the right time. And so we've and now, you know, access to compute AI, CRISPR and a multitude of technologies, CRISPR has become one to catch all for the machinery, but a lot of other technologies as well, all have come together to enable that kind of vision of what they what they talked about it. So we think of it as like, kind of the right time to do this. We're still in the early days, right? But it just gives an idea of scale. You know, people were doing, including us, like he, were doing victory laps a few years ago to make an edit. We're going to victory laps making free edits, right? Most genetically modified precision of the animal in the world at the time was the boy mouse, and then it was the dire work. And you know, those were 20 edits, right? And now we're doing 100 plus edits at a time. We have cell lines that will become animal. We have cell lines that will most likely become animals that have hundreds of them. All right? Has the acceleration of AI development, help your business. It's been transformative. But we actually don't buy not because it's actually pretty intentional, but it's like every company has a website. Everybody's website is an AI company. Shoelace is the best AI, informed, really, and so we innovations that we do in the incredible sciences, achieve it transparently. Construction. Models, we actually have models for doing analysis on cardiovascular how we actually trigger different steps in cellular dividing and whatnot, as it relates to computer vision models, help computer user models robots. So we have across the board, but we don't, I will say they're without AI. Good tapping back to the to the Jurassic Park, kind of ethical discussion, right? Like, I've heard you answer this question before, and I think it's an interesting one for the audience. Like you get some feedback, right? Well, should you be doing any of this? Should you be playing God? Should these animals be back? Yeah, in the world? Well, yeah. And once again, you know, we're gonna do wrong. One thing, honestly, no companies like and we do everything right. One of the things, I think the goal, is that we do a lot more right than wrong. Right, especially this big and bold. But you know, I think that we have a duty to the planet, to conservation, to inspiring the next generation. You know, I just think that we have this duty to pursue these right. I think synthetic biology will be more transformative than any other technology set of capabilities that we have on this planet. And so I think we, I think it's not to pursue this, right? We can look at things like, okay, we're building half of by the next 25 years, and we know that conservation works with exploring the bleed inside, kind of stop the patient from dying. We're just flying on the table, right? We know that human health care and medicine, we know that you can make other things like plastic degradation and all kinds of stuff. And so it's like for me, I think that, you know, it's unethical not to leverage the ingenuity innovation to solve problems, including the problems that were created by previous iterations of technologies. So, like, we made classic cool. Now, right? So, so I really do think that that, you know, I'm out innovate. Chicago, because in bad ways. But, you know, I think that if you do it the right way, and you have animal welfare and government, all these things, I think you can be finding, and you've been, I mean, obviously a lot of the attention big stories, you're obviously some of the conservation. Yeah, so, so a couple things we did, a we made some early successes in a couple of key areas. One That Got a little derailed at the issue was that we worked with Baylor College of Medicine, few of our partners, Dr Pauline, to develop a mRNA vaccine that doesn't cure but prevents the spread of a disease called PHV, which is a herpes virus that actually kills 20% of baby elements at times being terrible, it kills more Elephants than protein human elephant combined is the number of measureability receiving in the wild. We have data that it actually existed in Mammo. So we actually have data that there are, eh, these in mammoths, right? And so it's been around for a while. And so the most deadly strain we are that we have now built an mRNA vaccine that is being tested in elephants and conferring 100% resistance, which makes it so, so that alone at scale and a global inoculation of elephants will save more elephants than all of elephant conservation forever, wow, if you just look at math, right? And so it's and so those are the impacts of synthetic biology, right? That's one vaccine now. You never manufacture it. You gotta distribute it. You gotta get approval. There's a lot that goes into it, right? Most people sometimes forget that about our business is that, like the science is a lot around what we have to do is completely out of our control, right? We were dealing with this right now. We built an elephant, an elephant serious support. We haven't announced before publicly yet. In terms of we don't know. So everyone's like, can you make a dinosaur? And is there Megalodon DNA, which is a weird one. That's actually the weirdest question. Is the ocean here we can Yeah, and so we have a whole war. Don't like these people to let us use their elements or surrogacy for our manage, right? So there's there are things that are out of our control, but we try to apply it. Another really cool project that we did, separate research. 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