Location 1: Siberia, Arctic Tundra

Scene: Woolly mammoths grazing

Location 2: Tasmania, Australia

Scene: Tasmanian tigers hunting 

Location 3: Mauritius, Indian Ocean

Scene: Dodos gathering nuts

Reads like a Jurassic Park-style film script, since these animals went extinct. 4,000, 500, and 90 years ago. 

But what if this were documentary, and not fiction? 

In a groundbreaking first, a Texan biotech company is on a moonshot mission to revive long-dead species – by hacking DNA. What’s more, Colossal Biosciences is proving that de-extinction is not just possible, it’s happening. 

And Ben Lamm – a member of the International Explorer’s Club, someone who travels constantly despite being terrified of flying, and has “finding a lost civilisation” on his bucket list – is leading the charge. What got him interested? Hearing legendary geneticist George Church talking about trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, and so he co-founded the world’s first and only de-extinction company, championing these seemingly impossible – but very real – projects. 

As they say in Texas, this is not his first rodeo. Lamm is a serial entrepreneur. Before Colossal, there was Hypergiant, a military-focused AI company. Team Chaos, a game developing studio. Chaotic Moon, an apps company. Ventures successfully bought out, one even by Accenture. 

With Colossal, Lamm seems to be in it for the long haul. He’s made it clear: this isn’t an elaborate party trick to awaken lost species from their eternal hibernations à la Jurassic Park (while a fan of science fiction, he shrugs off the parallel). Instead, it’s a combination of scientific rigour, cutting edge technology, with a healthy heaping of daring and determination. 

First, they’re sequencing ancient, leftover DNA in fossils. Then marrying them with their closest living relatives. Using the Nobel Prize-winning gene editing tool, Crisper-Cas9. To produce animals akin to their long-lost counterparts. 

Living relatives effectively turned into surrogate parents of gene-edited foetuses. 

So, for woolly mammoths, Colossal turned to Asian elephants. Nicobar pigeons for dodos. Tiny mouse-like fat-tailed dunnarts for Tasmanian tigers. 

Currently, they’re preparing to birth an Asian elephant-woolly mammoth hybrid by 2028 – in 5 short years. And they’ve sequenced 99.99% of the Tasmanian tiger’s genome. 

All this for what, though? 

To combat the climate crisis by rewilding. 

Take the melting Arctic tundra, a ticking time bomb. 800,000-year-old permafrost that has 1.6 billion metric tonnes of carbon trapped in it – twice as much as in the Earth’s atmosphere. Not to mention unknown diseases frozen in the ice. But reintroducing woolly mammoths (or proxy species) to their once-native ecosystems could slow – stop – these emissions. By reconstructing destroyed food chains and restoring habitats. 

Tall claims? Lamm bats plenty of criticism – 30,000 species go extinct every year, could the millions be advanced to conservation efforts to save currently endangered species? – but the moonshot has grabbed global eyeballs. And the interest of not one, but multiple global icons. Chris Hemsworth and Peter Jackson. Paris Hilton and Tiger Woods. Madonna. To the point where Lamm has been able to raise $225 million – and counting – for this larger-than-life project. 

A project that also helped turbocharge a vaccine against a virus that kills 20% of baby elephants each year. And a project that will see its efforts put out to pasture for free for anyone else to use. 

Sharp business acumen, an unquenchable thirst for curiosity, and what is  more than just a passion project. At SYNAPSE 2025, Ben Lamm will talk mission and method: why he’s rewilding our present by resurrecting our past.  

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