Modern WisdomThe Man Bringing Extinct Creatures Back To Life - Ben Lamm
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
140 min read · 27,729 words- 0:00 – 2:46
Ben’s Wild Plan to Fix Global Warming
- CWChris Williamson
Just as a headline here, you're trying to fix global warming by bringing woolly mammoths back to life amongst a number of other extinct creatures, right?
- BLBen Lamm
(laughs) Well, I, I don't think that one company can fix global warming. I, I think that we are at the, you know, brink of a major biodiversity crisis, which will lead to ecosystem collapse, and, uh, restoring ecosystems like the Arctic tundra is something that, you know, we're very focused on. So, I hope that we are one of many people working on, uh, biodiversity loss and combating climate change, but, uh, I think it's maybe a little bold, uh, to say that we're, we are solving it ourselves.
- CWChris Williamson
I understand. Okay. So, somebody comes up to you at a cocktail party and says, "What do you do?" What is your answer for your day-to-day work?
- BLBen Lamm
So my, my general answer is, I say, "I'm in technology." If they dive deeper, I'm like, "Well, I'm in biotechnology." If they dive deeper, I, I tell 'em that we're working to bring back extinct species and preserve all life on Earth, and then it, and then it kind of unravels from there.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Okay. Talk, talk to me about de-extinction, then. Like, what, what even is that?
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, so de-extinction is, uh, not necess- not necessarily a new concept. Other, everything from books and movies and, and, and some other movements, uh, through, in the world have talked about the concept of de-extinction, and the way we view de-extinction is the de-extinction of core genes to build proxy species for, uh, genetics that have been lost, uh, to time, whether that was, you know, uh, due to solely, you know, climate change events, or towards, uh, or, or due to the fact of man's, uh, implications, right? And so, uh, fundamentally, we are de-extincting the core genes that make all of these species those unique species. And so recently, I was on a podcast where someone wanted to, uh, debate semantics over the dodo, and they, and they were like, "But sure, dodo is just gonna be a silly-looking pigeon," and I hated to inform them that a dodo was a silly-loo- looking pigeon. Dodos were pigeons, and so, uh, the things that made it a different flightless pigeon were the genes that were de-extincting. And so it, it definitely brings out, you know, different, uh, groups have different perspectives on, on the work that we're doing, but, but fundamentally, we're bringing back these lost species, uh, to, to increase biodiversity, and then we're using all those technologies for conservation, which is pretty cool.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Nuts and bolts, how the fuck do you bring a dead animal back to life? (laughs)
- BLBen Lamm
So you can't, you can't clone a, a, a, a, a dead animal.
- 2:46 – 9:40
How to Extract Ancient DNA
- BLBen Lamm
Uh, you, you don't have living cells. So what you have to do is you have to look for its closest living relative. So in the case of the mammoth, that's the Asian elephant. Mammoths are actually closer related to Asian elephants than Asian elephants are to African elephants, which is like, like that blew my mind when, when I learned that, 'cause I, I, uh, I was also the first to de-extinction when I was working on this. And what was interesting is you actually have to then go look at the DNA sequences, and so we actually had to s- assemble 54 mammoth genomes to build out kind of a reference genome that we could do all the comparative genomics to that of the Asian elephant, and they're about 99.6% the same genetically. And so then, and then in that difference of 0.4%, so a lot of genes, we then started to isolate, what are the genes that really made a mammoth a mammoth? You know, the domed cranium, the curved tusk, the shaggy coat, this extra fat layer, how they produce oxygen in subfreezing temperatures. And so we, we then had to spend a lot of time doing computational analysis to really understand that, and then we take and engineer those genes into that of an Asian elephant cell, then we go through the cloning process, kind of like what they did with Dolly the sheep back in the '90s, only it's way more efficient now and it uses, like, lasers and stuff like that, versus back in the '90s, they were kind of just jamming stuff together, which is weird, uh, but it kind of worked then. Now it actually really works 'cause it's, it's way more precise. Uh, and then you, and then you actually implant that embryo into the closest living relative, being the Asian elephant, uh, from a surrogacy perspective.
- CWChris Williamson
Where do you get the genomics of a animal that's not ... When did they ... When was the last woolly mammoth alive?
- BLBen Lamm
So, so the last ones actually were about 3500, uh, uh, BC, so they were up in Wrangel Island. So, they've been extinct for, for quite some time. Uh, ironically, though, during the, the building of the pyramids, the last mammoths were still alive. So it's kind of, kind of weird. It kind of blows people's minds. A lot of people think that, that mammoths, um, uh, were, are, were, like, around the time of the dinosaurs and so they're like, "That's 65 million years old." It's not, and, and a lot of the DNA comes from the permafrost, 'cause animals will die up there. Uh, they will instantly start to freeze. Uh, layers of snow and ice, layers of snow and ice, and so there's tons of preserved species up in the permafrost, and so, you know, over the last 15 years, there's been incredible researchers like George Church and Lou Vidal and Beth Shapiro and, and, and teams that we work, these teams that we work with that have actually gone on expeditions to the permafrost to extract ancient DNA. So, it's a little bit of science fiction and Jurassic Park-y. It's a little bit of Indiana Jones. It's, it's really interesting how it kind of all comes together, uh, in, in de-extinction science today.
- CWChris Williamson
So, you have ... Is it entire animals or is it, is it bones of animal? What's preserved, 'cause you know-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, so in some case-
- CWChris Williamson
... lots of shit can get preserved in, in frost, right?
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah. Lots of shit can be preserved in frost. Um, but, but it depends. So in the case of the, uh, dodo bird-Some of tho- some of it is just in, uh, some of the DNA's actually just taken from the bone or the inner beak that they've actually drilled into. In the case of the thylacine, you know, which went extinct only in 1936, uh, hunters actually preserved one of the pups that they killed in, uh, in alcohol, uh, that ended up being in a museum. And so that was really well-preserved. In the case of the permafrost, with mammoths, you know, sometimes you get actual flesh. Sometimes you get actual, you know, uh, hairs. Sometimes you get actual meat. Uh, it's very old and very disgusting, and it's got lots of bacteria, so I wouldn't recommend eating it. Some people have, which is crazy. Uh, but a great place to get ancient DNA is y- you mentioned it, is teeth. So some teeth do a great job of preserving it. And there's an inner ear bone called the petrous bone where you actually get great DNA from, uh, species that are 10,000 years or older.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you mean when you say great DNA? Is this a- a- a- an area where it's-
- BLBen Lamm
Well, it's great. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
But it's not, it's not degraded over time?
- BLBen Lamm
No, it's, it's, it's massively-
- CWChris Williamson
There's a high density of it?
- BLBen Lamm
It, it's, there's a high density of it. There's massive, there's, there is, you know, things like heat and sun and radiation are all very, very bad for DNA, and so DNA starts to degrade the minute it's outside of your body. So it is definitely degraded, uh, DNA. But you can get more and more of it if it's in these well-preserved spots, like teeth, like the petrous bone, or really well-frozen.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- BLBen Lamm
And we, and we've gotten all of it over the, over the times. And we're actually doing a project right now with the University of Alaska, um, and, and this group, uh, this, this program that we put together called, uh, Adopt-a-Mammoth, where we're actually taking teeth samples and we're giving them, from the u- from universities, uh, or, or, or from the museums in Alaska, giving them and loaning them to, uh, schoolkids, showing them how you extract ancient DNA. And we're doing a whole both, uh, radiocarbon dating and, uh, population genomics study and sequencing all of these Alaskan mammoths. So it's a way to bring kids into it, br- uh, it's a way to promote education, you know, 'cause de- this is pretty fucking cool, right? Um, but then also, it's a, it's an incredible way, uh, for us to get tons of data that we can use to understand populations of American mammoths, because a lot of the mammoths that we have are actually from Siberia, so they're Russian mammoths.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, interesting. And, uh, you mentioned, uh, 53, uh, different, uh, samples that was taken, and all of those are combined. Presumably, the goal here is if we have, uh, you know, like 98% degradation of the genome, but we get tons of them, like 50 of them-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... we can build that up over time, and hopefully we get somewhere close to actually seeing a full sequence.
- BLBen Lamm
And you'll, and you'll never get to fully 100%. I mean, you, you just won't, right? And so, and some of this stuff happens in the regulatory regions, some of this happens in the non-regulatory regions. So you don't even really need as, as much as, uh, as you may think. Uh, there's an area that I, I learned about when we started working on this a- about kinda DNA coverage and the number of reads that the system does, 'cause even these sequencers aren't perfect, right? So they're, they're basically giving you a probablis- uh, a, a probability score of what that letter is on, i- in, uh, in terms of the, the individual nucleotides in the, in the, in the DNA sequence. And so what's interesting is the more DNA you get, then th- uh, and the more reads you can do, the higher probability, right? 'Cause if you can go to 20 to 50X coverage, that means that they've gone through the whole genome 20 to 50 times, so that means that, that there's a higher likelihood they are going to be correct, the machines can be correct in telling you what that specific letter is. And so anytime you get 25 plu- X up, sometimes as low as, you know, uh, teens up, you, you typically get enough of the genome that you can get pretty precise.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So let's say that you now
- 9:40 – 22:55
Making a Mammoth a Reality from DNA
- CWChris Williamson
have compared the A- African elephant?
- BLBen Lamm
Asian ele- Asian elephant.
- CWChris Williamson
Ali- Asian elephants. You've compared the Asian elephants to these 53 AI-enhanced sequenced differences. There's this 0.4% or 0.6%, which is the difference. We've got this.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Now what? Now, like, what do you, w- what's, what do you, what do you, you're gonna 3D print a mammoth? Like, what are we doing here?
- BLBen Lamm
And you just, and you just guess. No. You actually do molecular and, uh, functional assays and tests to understand what do those genes do. And what's interesting from both a convergent evolution and a general evolution perspective is you can start to see in different species how certain hair, for example, grows. So we, we know this about mammoths, which is really interesting. I always thought that mammoths just had long hair, right? They actually have five different types of hair. Uh, and so different genes and different pathways do that. And so one of the things that we're doing with, with Colossal which we find interesting is we're not only looking at what were the genes in, in the, uh, single gene and, and, uh, additional genes that work together to produce that phenotype or physical attribute of that species. But we're als- we have an entire, uh, genotype to, to phenotype team, our G to P team, that looks and leverages AI and some of these great techno- neuro- neurotechnologies to actually under- try to understand how do things like size, how do things like hair, how does that work across one million species, right, even with different genes? Like, what are the different stages of development? And so we're doing a lot of work in, in kinda general genotype to phenotype around big core things like, you know, everything from size to cranial facial shapes, uh, you know, to fat patterns, to, to patterns of the, uh, actual kind of fur. And then as well as, you know, looking at things like, like hair and fur length and, and different regulatory regions like that. So it's really interesting 'cause for, from a, for our perspective, because we're working on multiple species, we have our individual teams that's trying to solve the individual, uh, challenge of each species. And then we've got this cross-functional team that's trying to look for trends that can be applied to other mammals, right? And that can be really helpful for, like, you know, drought-resistant cattle in, in, uh, in other species.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Moving forward, how do we make a mammoth?
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, so, um, the way you do it is you go through that computational analysis first. You get the DNA, then you assemble the DNA, then you actually, uh, uh, do that computational analysis. And once you have your targeted gene list, you then go through the actual process of editing, uh, Asian elephant cells, right? Because they're the closest living. So we did... You mentioned African elephants. We did a, uh, work with the Vertebrate Genome Project to do a full reference genome of the African elephant, more for conservation than really for our project. We did find some interesting differences between mammoths, Asian elephants, and African elephants that, that, uh, we are starting to explore. Um, but once you do that, you go through the process of understanding what that gene list is. You then start making edits and you start with looking for the edits that you think are gonna be the highest impact. You then do a bunch of tests to make sure that those edits actually took. Uh, and then once you get to a point that you feel like you've got a cell with the edits that you feel comfortable with, you do sequencing, just like we did at the beginning on those cells, to make sure that the edits are there and they didn't create what's called off-target effects, meaning things that you didn't mean to break in the genome. Uh, and so once you feel like you're comfortable there, you then go into a... Use a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer or cloning. And that's where we take the nucleus, uh, of a somatic cell and we put it into that of a germ cell or an egg cell.
- CWChris Williamson
What's, what's a somatic cell for the people that don't know?
- BLBen Lamm
So, so somatic cells are basically all the cells in your body that are... or in an animal's body that are not sperm and egg. So those are, those are like skin cells, different types of tissue cells. So we take the nucleus or that brain out of a somatic cell and we put it into that of a germ cell or an egg cell. And then effectively, you've got, you know, the basis of an embryo. You then use a process of slight electrification and, and some, some other media, and then it starts to divide. And once you get to the right stage of, of division, you then implant that into a, a surrogate. In the case of the wooly mammoth, that's the Asian elephant. Um, so, so that's how it works in mammals. How it works, uh, in, in birds is, is, is slightly, uh, different. Um, it, it, it's a little bit different of a process, but it's a much easier gestation process. So, uh, I... If that's interesting for dodos, I could talk about that or-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah. I wanna know how a... I, I wanna know how a bird...
- BLBen Lamm
So for bi- birds are even... Uh, what's interesting to me about birds is the gestational side, because we're not going through, uh, the somatic cell nuclear transfer or that cloning step in birds. Uh, birds are harder on the front end, but they're so much easier currently on the back end, right? Because we don't have to work... We don't have to go work on the surrogacy side. You don't have to do the embryo transfer. You don't have to do, uh, the nucleus transfer. So what's great about birds is you, you... While we can't clone birds currently in the world, meaning that we can't find the, the, uh, nucleus at the right time of development to move it, so you can't clone birds yet. Maybe one day we can. There's debate on whether it's possible, but you know, everything was impossible until it's not, right? And so, um, but what's interesting is what we are doing is, is we're actually using chickens as our host. And so this blew my mind, kind of like how close mammoths and Asian elephants were. When you take... If you can cultivate what's called primordial germ cells, so the precursors to egg and sperm, right? And then you edit those. You can then use that and build a... An, an edited chicken with these edited primordial germ cells. So thi- this is where it gets crazy. Uh, I mean, at least for me, being into de-extinction, um, you can then have edited primordial germ cells chicken A and edited primordial germ cell chicken B. Those chickens can fall in love and depending on your world views, they could get married or whatever, and then, uh, they have a baby and they have an egg. When that egg hatches, it is based on what you put into the primordial germ cells. So they've done this and created transgenic, uh, transgenic ducks where they've, they've put edited duck cells in PGCs, primordial germ cells, in a chicken one. They've done it in chicken two. Uh, those chickens grow up. Those chickens fall in love. They get married, whatever. They have a... They have a baby, uh, an egg. The egg hatches and it's a duck. And so what's amazing is that chickens, uh, will actually be the surrogates for our first dodos, which as we talked about briefly earlier are pigeons. So, um, our, our, our, our extinct-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, so it's an interesting, it's an interesting world. And it... Now we're even exploring... I don't know if it's possible, but I'm happy to share with you, we are ex- exploring bird cloning, right? Because we were told, "This is how you have to do it using these, uh, using these types of primordial germ cells." So that was the process that we followed. Uh, but then, you know, we were like, "But why doesn't bird cloning work?" And we got lots of feedback and we're like, "Huh, maybe we'll try that." So we are working on bird cloning. Not sure if it's gonna work, uh, but if not, we'll go down this, uh, PGC route that seems, uh, pretty plausible.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so getting back to the mammoth.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
There's an unclosed, there's an unclosed loop about that one. We have this Asian elephant, this unsuspecting mother Asian elephant who is going to give birth to what? What will, what will ultimately come out of this elephant?
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, so, so it's a great question. Uh, it will, it will be our kind of mammoth 1.0s, right? So we take... It's an Asian elephant that has been edited. So I come from software, so I think of things like software. So our 1.0s will produce all the core phenotypes that we know and love in a wooly mammoth. So we're de-extincting all the core hair genes, the cranial facial shape, that domed cranium, uh, the tusk, uh, uh, morphology in terms of the, the curved tusks, uh, as well as like shorter tails, smaller ears. And then there's some stuff that's kind of under the hood, like how, you know, how the, the, uh, mammoths are more cold tolerant with certain fat layers, with the ability for, uh, their nerve endings not to fry at subfreezing temperatures, the ability to produce hemoglobin and oxygen, you know, in the blood vessels.
- CWChris Williamson
Laser eyes.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, yeah. There are no laser eyes, but that, it's, that's a, uh, that's a, uh, i-... We got asked if we could make a thylacine with laser eyes. Um, so w- we get a lot of interesting requests, believe it or not.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. So, uh, is it accurate to say that it's a mammoth, or is it accurate to say that it's an entirely new species?
- BLBen Lamm
It's, it's really not, uh... So, so the IUCN and, and the Species Survival Commission, which is kind of like the UN of species, which is amazing, we work very closely with them, defines a new species as something that gave rise in nature. So it's not really a new species, uh, at least how it's, how it's defined.
- CWChris Williamson
But it's also not a mammoth, right? Because it doesn't have-
- BLBen Lamm
That's, uh, I mean, it, it has all the core... And so, so this, this goes in... I, I mentioned this earlier, right? You know, whether you think a, a dodo is a silly-looking pigeon or a mammoth is, is an elephant, a mammoth was an elephant. Like, that's just what they were. They're pachyderms. Uh, that, that's what they were. And so I don't know... Like, my dogs are mutts, right? And I would argue that most species are hybrids, and that's hybridization, uh, gives rise to newer species, right? And so, you know, i- if some people aren't happy unless we clone 100% of a mammoth, then, then I would argue that, you know, it's a cold adjusted, uh, genetically modified elephant with extinct mammoth alleles from a series of biodiversity gaps of, you know, three to five- or 10,000 years, right? So, so in terms of-
- CWChris Williamson
Much less sexy as a name.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, I mean, if that's what you wanna call it, that's what you wanna call it. But, I mean, for you and me, or at least for me, when I see it and, well, uh, if we are successful, you know, it has all the core phenotypes and it's cold adapted, if we de-extincted the core genes that made a mammoth a mammoth, then, then to me, that's a mammoth, right? You know, our, our, our goal is not to create... Uh, there, there's a lot of infrastructure, uh, in the genome that's just... it, it doesn't produce, uh, any real effects. So, um, we could add thousands upon thousands of, of edits to our, our mammoths that don't have any tru- you know, true meaningful effect. But from a purist perspective, you-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BLBen Lamm
... someone could say, "Oh, well, that's closer to a mammoth." Um, so, so-
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Yeah, okay.
- BLBen Lamm
... you know, that, that, that's at least how we view it.
- 22:55 – 30:55
What Could Go Wrong?
- CWChris Williamson
this, this process? Are there any-
- BLBen Lamm
Well, an- anything. I mean, there's a... I mean, anytime you're doing something that's hard from a science perspective, things could go wrong, right? Like you, you could, uh, not fully get all of the right edits made. You could... Not only that, you... I mean, we, we can test for, you know, whether we made them, right? But do all of the edits produce the phenotypes or, or core phys- physical attributes that we're looking for, right? Um, how does the somatic cell transfer process work in elephant versus bovine versus pig versus dog versus-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BLBen Lamm
... mouse, right? And so, you know, there, there's still nuances to that, right? And then gestationally, you know, the, the, the thing that's really interesting is that I don't think there's been an, uh... This whole concept of xenotransfer, right? Of like... or xenotransplantation of taking something from one species to another, you know, sounds like crazy, but we see it all the time. People get xenotransplantation pieces of pigs in their hearts and go live normal lives, right? We also see that, um, you know, uh... We also see that, that species like a mammoth-... which is closely related to an Asian elephant, uh, than it is to a, than an Asian elephant is to an African elephant. African elephants and Asian elephants can actually interbreed and produce viable offspring. And so these are two genetically distant species that are further apart than these two. And remember, to your point earlier, we're not making exactly this, we're making somewhere in between, right? So we're even closer to an Asian elephant. So we believe there's a high degree of confidence i- uh, in that inner species', uh, uh, transfer and in that, in that surrogacy. Um, but people ask me all the time, "Will the mammoth be the first species?" Due to the 22-month gestation, I, I, I think it's highly likely there will be another species that it comes down to.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, it's gonna get pipped at the... But it's gonna start off on the race first, and it's gonna end up coming in last.
- BLBen Lamm
It's got 22 months of gestation. I mean, that's just, that's, that's hard to, you know, there, there are people that-
- CWChris Williamson
Takes time to grow a mammoth.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah. There, there are people, there's other species that could do a victory lap before. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah, you've got an entire army of those things that look like wolves. Uh, all right, what else? Uh, actually, here's a question. So it seems to me, with my extensive knowledge of how genomic sequencing works, that the main limiting factor is the quality of the DNA that you can get from whatever the sample is of the animal. Is that right?
- BLBen Lamm
I think that that's overcome... I, I don't think that's, that's the, the limited thing. I think that, that the... Uh, I'll get to limiting. I think that what you just said is overcome with more samples, right? And so we've got incredible partners like Ludvig Dahlin in Stockholm that's, you know... Ludvig Dahlin's o- arguably one of the most knowledgeable people in the world of the genes that make a mammoth a mammoth, and he's constantly just finding and sequencing more mammoths. So I think that we can probabilistically get through what you just suggested. Um, I think that the biggest issue, and I think they're different for species, but, you know, it's just editing, right? What's, what's amazing is that we have a lot of incredible editing technologies. People kind of just clump all genome editing as one thing, but there's a lot of different technologies. There's editing individual letters in kind of that twisted ladder, right, each one of those rungs. You can edit individual ones. You can knock out pieces of it. Uh, you can edit multiple things at the same time all over the genome. That's called multiplex editing. That's where we are spending a lot of time, and we're trying to be the most innovative company in the world, being able to edit a lot of the parts of the genome at one time so you don't have to be so precise. You can edit that same level of precision all over. And we've had, you know, over 90% efficacy already proven internally, which is amazing, uh, for our edits, and we're trying to stack those. And then you come to, to DNA synthesis, where it's like, to your, if you can get to your point earlier, if you can get that, that, that right amount of, you know, letters in the right order and you have a high degree of con- uh, uh, of confidence in it, you could synthesize a big piece of that and then just swap it in. So in areas where there's lots of edits, instead of doing lots of edits, you know, either using kind of some of these, uh, individual editing tools or even editing multiplex, we're even synthesizing pieces, whole pieces of DNA, and swapping it in because that may have, you know, 20 different edits that we didn't have to make 'cause we really only had to synthesize it and then swap in one. So, so I think it, that depending on how far we wanna push editing, I think that, and, and the, the rate at which editing, um, the rate at which editing technologies progress will probably be the limiting factor, not on our success, but on the number of edits that can be made.
- CWChris Williamson
When it comes to other animals, if we were to try and get more exotic, the, I mean, the Jurassic Park memes write themselves with this, right?
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, we, we've, we've heard that before. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It doesn't surprise me. Um, with those, what's the limiting factor there? Why is it the case that you... Uh, maybe you can, but why is it the ca- why is it the case that you can't do something which is a little bit more exotic?
- BLBen Lamm
Um, well, I mean, I, I would argue that no one, to my knowledge-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BLBen Lamm
... has seen a mammoth, so it's pretty exotic. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
More exotic, you know what... Older, older, let's go, no-
- BLBen Lamm
Oh, okay.
- CWChris Williamson
... not call it more exotic. I'm not gonna make a value judgment on your mammoth. Older.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, so, um, uh, I mean, Castaneda's is pretty exotic. Um, Mauritius is a very exotic place, it's beautiful with dodos. Um, so, uh, you know, rate limiting, you know, you can't, you know, harvest DNA from bone. You know, Kenneth Lacovara, who's incredible, he's one of the top paleontologists in the world, he dis- he discovered Dreadnoughtus. He's also one of the most interesting people in the world. Uh, the largest dinosaur ever, Dreadnoughtus. Uh, he's actually been able to demineralize bones, uh, dinosaur bones, and get pieces of amino acids, right? But am- amino acids and even some proteins and some collagens, but th- that does not... That's not a big chunk of DNA, right? So, uh, we get the amber question, we get the dino DNA question. So I guess there is technically dinosaur collagen and dinosaur, uh, amino acids, and maybe some proteins here and there, but that is so-so. The, the pieces of confetti, you're now making pieces of confetti of pieces of DNA confetti of confetti to try and do it.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- BLBen Lamm
So, so, uh, for-
- CWChris Williamson
A dinosaur, it does not maketh.
- BLBen Lamm
It, it d- it does not. And so, so right now, we can go back about a b- a million years. Uh, I haven't seen the latest in terms of what, what's been sequenced, but I know we've been able to sequence 700,000 to, to a million years and, and get viable DNA. But at some point, you know... And so, so tha- tha- there's a lot of exotic stuff between then and now. Um, uh, also, you know, uh, cold, uh, dry environments are great for DNA. Um, you know, hot... A lot of people love to talk about the La Brea Tar Pits. We get a lot of questions about the La Brea Tar Pits. And, uh, you know, hot, acid-filled places are not great for DNA. Um, there's been some really cool animals that have gone extinct in warm, wet, and climates that, you know, aren't great for DNA, uh, so you can't make those. We, we... A big fan favorite is the giant sloth.... people with. There, there used to be a giant sloth that was the size of a tree, a giant ground sloth that would literally. And there's, like, some, uh, I've read some stories about how they loved avocados and how they propagated avocados. I, I don't know if there's any truth to that, but it's one of the recent things I've read about. Um, so, so there are lots of kind of, uh, different species that, you know, are interesting. I think that a lot of the Pleistocene species, late Pleistocene species, make a lot of sense because there is great prese- or there is a- as great as preservation as you could probably get, uh, because, you know, early, early humans weren't sticking them in, you know, sub-freezing temperature freezers at the time.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Okay. What else from the last million years,
- 30:55 – 37:37
What Else Would Ben Like to Bring Back?
- CWChris Williamson
if you were to have a, a hit list, a top of the pops, aside from your mammoth and your dodo, what else, what else is in there for, "I would like to bring this back"?
- BLBen Lamm
Well, I mean, I think you have to have a, a reason, you know, why. Um, one of the species-
- CWChris Williamson
No, no, no, no, no, Ben. This is we are completely liberated from resources-
- BLBen Lamm
Okay. Okay, okay.
- CWChris Williamson
... ethics, or a service of humanity. What do you wanna bring back?
- BLBen Lamm
I think it's hard to, to fully liberate ourselves from service of humanity or, or ethics. There, there's a couple species that I find very interesting. Um, I think the great auk is really interesting. It was like the American penguin. It's super cool. I think that it served a purpose. Um, I think that there is a whale size, uh, manatee or dugong called, uh, the Steller's sea cow. We, we can't bring it back. I mean, we actually have DNA for it, but there's nothing to gestate it in. It's just too, too big unless we get exure- exuderal development devices to work, uh, which, which we do have a 17-person team working on. Um, uh, you know, a fan favorite is, uh, saber-toothed cat, uh, which there were, there were, there were several, but there were two that were, um, pretty prominent, one being Homotherium and one being Spilodon. Spilodon had the bigger tusk that, you know, the big canines that we think of. Um, so I, I think all of those are pretty interesting candidates. Uh, you know, I don't, we can't do the Steller's sea cow, but I think that'd be incredible to see, like, a, you know, blue whale size, you know, manatee. Like, you'd be like, "What?" And apparently they were, like, incredibly helpful to the kelp forest of the Pacific Northwest. And so, um, there are, they were also big carbon sinks, like, like elephants. So, um, those are all really cool, uh, species. We're not working on any of them currently.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BLBen Lamm
Um, but they're cool.
- CWChris Williamson
All right, so what's, uh, uh, aside from-
- BLBen Lamm
But they're cool.
- CWChris Williamson
Aside from the mammoth, uh, the mammoth being a very useful one, and I wanna get onto why it's particularly useful, and aside from these other ones that are, like, the sexy ones, um, what else would you consider to be-
- BLBen Lamm
You just don't think a mammoth is sexy, is that. I think a mammoth is a beast.
- CWChris Williamson
Look, I'm not, I'm not a, a hairy... Ha- hair, that much hair is too much for me. Um, what else is particularly useful from the last one million years? Uh, I, like I said, we have these very specific use cases-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... for certain animals.
- BLBen Lamm
So I'll, I'll hit the use cases of, uh, of the non-, the, the two non-mammoth species, and then, and then kind of, I guess, probably then to other species. But, so specifically with the dodo, bringing back the dodo doesn't, like, fix the ecosystem of Mauritius. But bringing back the dodo, which is a symbol of, of, of man-caused, uh, extinction, will force us and the Mauritian government, who we're working very closely with, on, uh, removing the invasive species that actually led to the dodo's extinction. So, a lot of people love to just say that dodos were dumb and, uh, people just ate them. Uh, th- you know, there, there's actually not as much data suggesting that as that because they were a ground-welling species of flightless bird and they laid their eggs on the ground one time of year, long, longer gestation cycles. Uh, when you bring in, you know, invasive species like pigs and rats and other things, they eat the stuff that's on the ground 'cause they can't climb trees, right? Uh, for the most part. And so, um, and so the process of bringing back the dodo in collaboration with, you know, local people and governments and Indigenous people, groups, and whatnot, uh, well, well r- if we do want to successfully rewild them in Mauritius, uh, and in the neighboring islands, then we actually have to do a process of ecosystem restoration. So it's forcing us to undo some of the, you know, sins of the past of int- introducing these invasive species, right? So, so they, a lot of times people ask us about the dodo. It doesn't really solve a pure ecological impact besides forcing us to undo that, which also could help other species that are native to, to, to those islands. Um, in the case of the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, some people also call it Tasmanian wolf, but more commonly Tasmanian tiger. Um, you know, it was the largest apex predator in Tasmania and lower Australia. And what, what people don't realize is people just think, "Oh, predators, easy life, top of the food chain." It's like, no, those are actually the big herbivores. Those have easier lives, you know, because they're just eating grass. There's a lot of energy expenditure that happens in carnivores to go make a kill, right? And so if you're a carnivore and you're j- and, and you're, or if you're an animal carnivore, I should say, and you're out in the field and you have to go actually, like, make a kill versus just get it from your local whole, Whole Foods, uh, and you actually have to go do the work, you're gonna be very strategic. You're gonna expend that enerture, uh, that, that energy expenditure very wisely. You're gonna look for either the small, old, weak, or sick animals to, to pick them off. And so what people don't realize is that, that a lot of these carnivores had tremendous help in, in, in, in, in kind of securing the balance of the ecosystem, not just 'cause they're thinning herds, but because they're also...... eating a lot of the stuff that, that, you know, i- i- and killing off the weak, the young, or the sick. And so one of the animals that, that Tasmanian tigers probably preyed on was the Tasmanian devil, who's smaller in the, in the, in, in the stack. And now due to this whole facial tumor disease, and they don't have any natural predators anymore, they are actually spreading this terrible facial tumor, uh, cancer to each other when they eat. Uh, I've been with Tasmanian devils in the wild, and, um, it's, uh, it's, it's very interesting. They're very aggressive. (laughs) And, um, and so when they're doing that, they're fighting each other, clawing each other and whatnot, and they're, they actually get pretty beat up during that kind of feeding thin- frenzy process, and they actually pass that disease. Well, if thylacines were around or, or, or, or a larger, um, animal that preyed on them, they would most likely thin out a lot of those, uh, animals that can't walk very well or see very well due to the facial tumor disease, right? So then there's less that can actually produce that. So that whole effect is called tropic downgrading when you, when you, uh, have a predator that actually can remove, uh, that from the wild. And, and that helps balance the ecosystem, right? And so, you know, uh, Dr. Andrew Pask is one of our partners on the thylacine rewilding e- restoration and rewilding project. He has been very, uh, adamant on, on, uh, their demise has led to the potential demise of the devils, which is, which is terrible. Um, so, so those are, those are the non-mammoth species impacts that-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, okay.
- BLBen Lamm
... we are, we're hoping to achieve.
- CWChris Williamson
So why, why
- 37:37 – 42:50
Why Mammoths Went Extinct
- CWChris Williamson
the mam- uh, like, the mammoth is kind of a ... It holds a particularly good cultural position. Uh, the dodo, I really like that thing about the dodo, that it's not about what it does functionally but what it does symbolically.
- BLBen Lamm
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
That look, guys, we, we went through all of this effort to bring this thing back because of how topsy-turvy the ecology of this particular location went. You gotta fix this. I, I think that's-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's just a really, really smart way of playing with human psychology. The mammoth also kind of is s- symbolic in some regards. I th- I don't know if we actually do know why it went extinct. Was it hunted to extinction?
- BLBen Lamm
There, there's-
- CWChris Williamson
Was it whatever, whatever?
- BLBen Lamm
So, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of different ... And it depends on who you ask, right? Like, there's, there are scientific peer-reviewed papers that say early man, uh, uh, hunted them to extinction. There's other papers that show and, and other research that shows that, you know, it was, it was, uh, climate and, and the evolving climate that pushed them further north. And then there's genetic bottleneck in Wrangel Island, the, the last mammoths died, uh, of, uh, uh, inbreeding. Um, but most likely what, what most people don't realize and, and, and I ... So I think they're ... I think the answer is somewhere in between, um, because I think there's data. I mean, w- we have, you know, proof of early man hunting mammoths. We, we have, you know, there's, there's spear marks and stuff like that in some mammoths. Uh, there was actually mammoth, uh, tools that had been used, right? And so, so I do think that ... That were, that were designed and built at, at that time. Uh, I think more than likely, you know, with, with elephants specifically, you have 22 months gestation then you have about six years to get to the point that they are truly adult elements, uh, elephants. And then there's about a 12 to 13 year sexual maturity process. So if you wanna kill all elephants, you actually don't have to, uh, you know, eradicate elephants. You don't have to eradicate all of them. You just have to eradicate enough of them because of that cycle.
- CWChris Williamson
Got it.
- BLBen Lamm
You know, uh, you know, whether it's the environment or predator, someone will thin them off over time to, to get to extinction.
- CWChris Williamson
Re- from a reproduction perspective and from-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... a fertility perspective, elephants generally are a fragile creature. Long gestation, long time as a relatively useless, unprotected infant. Still relatively useless sexually. Finally, we can do it. You know, it's just there's a lot of opportunity-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to be dead in that interim.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah. Before you get to the point to, to, to pass on your genes. One thing about elephants though, th- and, and we are, we're, we are working on this as it relates to mammoth, the extinction. We're not, we're not looking at it from a cancer perspective. But one of the things that's interesting about, uh, elephants, and I believe also blue whales, is they have an overexpression of, of, of this protein called p53. You, you and I and mice, we have about one expression of it. Uh, they have seven. And what's interesting is if you look at elephants for both body weight and, uh ... Both, both body weight and size, uh, and, and, and, and, and, and longevity of life, they get cancer a fraction of what they sh- quote unquote should based on, like, cancer and mutation curves of most mammals. And it is believed that a lot of that is due to p53, right? Um, and it's just something that's not as well studied as it probably should be 'cause most people work in mice and in pigs. So one of the things that's interesting about what we're doing with Colossal outside of the de-extinction or species preservation, uh, efforts, which I, I'd love to talk to you at, at some point if, if it's, uh, if it's, if it's an option. But, uh, but finding ... Because we are working in so many non-model organisms, we're starting to see really interesting things and learning a lot about species that there's just not been enough research into, at least of the genetic level. And so I'm not saying that p53 or elephants have the cure to cancer, but they may. And so we are working ... Like, w- for us to do our editing, think about that for us. For us to create what's called induced pluripotent stem cells, the most naive state of stem cells that then you can reprogram into any type of tissue, uh, which is very helpful for us, right, with what we're trying to do. Um, you know, we've achieved that in our marsupial species, the ƒ donar, that, that were ... It's our model organism for, for thylacine. But i- in the case of the mammoth, uh, and the Asian elephants, we're very, very close, but we haven't got there quite yet. We, we've gotten to iPSCs but we wanna get to further differentiation of them so that we can really characterize them as, as the most purest form of iPSCs. It's kind of like a grading scale. Um, and we've achieved that kind of first step and now we're kind of progressing. But we actually had to isolate-... and build a construct around P53 and learn how to regulate it. Because think about m- what do mutations look like? They look like cancer, right? And so when you're introducing mutations into the genome, it looks like, it looks like a form of cancer. So, so we're learning a lot about, uh, about, you know, how cellular regulation works around P53, which is really, really fascinating. One of our advisors, uh, uh, Fritz, uh, Vollrath, is, is one of the top P53 researchers who's been very helpful to us. But, um, but fundamentally, uh, that's an area where some of these species, while not massively reproductive viable, as you sa- as you, as you just stated, uh, could be really helpful if we understand more about their genetics.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay,
- 42:50 – 52:07
How Mammoths Are Useful to the Planet
- CWChris Williamson
so dodo bird, symbolic, useful-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... not being gone for that long. Uh, Tasmanian tiger would be good to stop the Tasmanian devils from getting this face tumor.
- BLBen Lamm
Also symbolic because they are on-
- CWChris Williamson
Also symbolic?
- BLBen Lamm
... they are only extinct because in th- because the, the Australian government put a bounty on their heads and paid people to eradicate them. So-
- CWChris Williamson
Bad idea.
- BLBen Lamm
... also very symbolic.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- BLBen Lamm
100% man-caused de-extinction or extinction.
- CWChris Williamson
That, all of that being said, woolly mammoths functionally do some cool stuff.
- BLBen Lamm
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
What cool stuff do they do? How do they help the planet?
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, so, so may I ... So there, there's a group called Pleistocene Park that George has been working with, uh, for the last 10 years in Northern Siberia. And what they found, and they've done this in, I think they published in eight different peer-reviewed papers, that if you can build the, if you can do two things, if you can remove these, the, the, uh, these coniferous trees, this taiga forest, uh, that is, uh, not the best carbon sink, they're also very dark bark, uh, they almost are like heat lightning rods in that they permeate, they permeate the heat down, uh, into the ground. If you remove those and if you get to the right level of, of cold tolerant, dense, uh, uh, cold tolerant, dense species, the right level of density, you can actually lower ground temperatures by up to eight degrees. Now, why ... And I'll, and I'll talk about that here in a second. But why is that important? We always talk about this 1.5 degree tipping point. Well, there's more carbon and more methane, and methane's about 30 times worse than the atmosphere. I think that's what kind of, uh, Venus' atmosphere is predominantly made of. Um, there's more carbon and more methane stored in the permafrost in that tur- in that tundra area than anywhere else on the planet. It's more than double what's been released in the atmosphere. It's over a trillion metric tons of carbon and methane, which is, which is terrible. I- it's more than even in the Amazon rainforest, right? 'Cause the Amazon and the rainforests have that carbon-to-oxygen cycle that, that just repeats. Not in the Arctic. It freeze, something dies, freezes, dies, freezes, and just piles up, right? So there's c- there's all this condensed biomass there. And, you know, if it rel- if it releases, it could be pretty bad. I was actually with the Army Corps of Engineers up there, uh, outside of, uh, Fairbanks in the permafrost research tunnels, and it, it, it's just in- it's, it's, it's absolutely amazing, but also kind of terrifying if it does melt. And so what's interesting is there's been studies shown about how effective elephants are, specifically forest elephants in Africa at doing a couple things. They actually make the ground temperatures cooler 'cause they pack the ground and they let the wind actually come down and, and hit the ground at, at, uh, during the cooler months, so it actually makes the, the ground cooler, number one. Number two, elephants love knocking down trees. And I know that sounds like wait, but I thought trees were good. Is, does Colossal have a war on trees? We do not have a war on trees. Uh, we just don't love the non-efficient coniferous dark bark trees in the Arctic that are n- that aren't, aren't helpful. Uh, the, the grasslands or the Arctic grasslands of that time, uh, were about two to three times more efficient at what's called the albino effect, at, at light reflection. So anything that wasn't absorbed for, for those gra- absorbed in those gra- grasses is not only, uh, uh, ref- is reflected back to space about two to three times more efficient than trees. And as well as they're about six times more efficient at storing carbon down into their roo- uh, root structures. And so there's been a lot of really great modeling done that if you could return the Arctic back to a more biodiverse with these like Pleistocene creatures i- uh, uh, area where you have these natural herding animals during the winter, they'll pack the snow down deeper or, or, or pack the snow down so that the winter months can actually like lower the temperatures. And we've seen that work in Siberia already. Mammoths, like elephants, are natural they love knocking down trees, right? So then you don't have to use, uh, tractors and other, uh, uh, equipment like they're doing in Siberia to knock down those trees. And then just building up that biodiversity in that area will lead to a better oxygen-nitrogen cy- cycle so that they will, you know, with their defecation and whatnot, they'll plant more o- of the, of the grasslands that are more efficient in the summer months, right? So, so it's really interesting when you put the whole puzzles together outside of mammoths, it's about eight degrees lower, which is pretty important when we're looking at probably surpassing that 1.5 degrees that we talked about in the, in the, in the Paris Agreement, right? It's pretty important to keep all that, that trapped and, and the, the model is is that mammoths can be a massive accelerant and can push those numbers even higher.
- CWChris Williamson
Little hairy farmers. Big hairy farmers-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... walking all over the place. So I, I volunteered-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... when I went to Thailand s- seven years ago, I volunteered at a conservation center that was reclaiming land from mono-crop, monoculture stuff. I want to say soybeans maybe? Do they do kind of aggressive? I feel like-
- BLBen Lamm
Oh, yeah.
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, something like that.
- CWChris Williamson
Anyway, it was somewhere that had been just one thing and, uh, this guy that had bought tons and tons of hectares of land had also bought two elephants. He'd saved two elephants that had been carrying, mother and daughter, that had been carrying tourists uphills. One of those like classic like mistreated animal stories.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and then brought them in. And I remember asking at the time, I was like, "Why would like ... Is the ele- is it just for fun or whatever?" And they were like, "Oh no, the elephants, they keep the trees to a certain level. They help to rotate the crops and the different, uh, ensure that manure from one side goes to another side and then there's fertilizer and they do all this other stuff as well."... and, uh, yeah, dude, I, I realized that elephants are basically nature's farmers in a way.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah. You're y- you're 100% spot on. And there was a study that came out that, uh, we can get and just send to you if you find it interesting to read, I, I think you probably will, where I, I think that they defined the c- in ju- just forest elephants in Africa and Asia, uh, uh, uh, preserve the equivalent of half a trillion dollars of carbon credits. Like, that's amazing. Um, and so people are just starting-
- CWChris Williamson
Breed more elephants. Breed more elephants.
- BLBen Lamm
Yes. Yeah. And we wanna, we, we, we wanna do that, right? Like, that's part of our goals.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you... Have you considered... I know that you haven't got one yet. What is the game plan upon, right, we can now produce elephants or we can produce mammoths at the pace of about (laughs) one every 22 months, uh, and then we can, like, scale it?
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- 52:07 – 54:10
Can Genetically-Created Mammoths Reproduce Naturally?
- CWChris Williamson
mammoths produced by you... Are you just allowed to let them have sex and, and proliferate, and then do you get mammoths out the other side or does something weird happen?
- BLBen Lamm
You do get, uh, mammoths out the other side, and there, there's actually, uh, data s- to suggest that mammoths and Asian elephants did interbreed, which is interesting, um, uh, but separate conversation. The, um, uh... So we work very closely with every nation. Every state has slightly different rules. We work very closely with the US government. We're working with the Australian government. We're working with the Mauritian government. And, uh, and then we're working with a couple of state governments. The US government's actually an investor in, in... One of the groups is an investor at Colossal. Um, and so for us, uh, you know, it's really important to be inclusive, not when we get mammoths and slap them on the butt and, and, and hope for the best. It, it's important to do it now, right? So we spend a lot of time with the government. We spend a lot of time with different regulatory agencies. We spend a lot of time with Indigenous people groups, private landowners. Um, and, and that's important, right? 'Cause it's not just about government regulation and support, like the EPA and, and other equivalents, but you also have Indigenous people groups, you have private landowners. So we've been... We've taken the, the, uh, stance that the rewilding process is going to be as long as the engineering process, uh, so why don't we start that now? And so just because we, we don't want approval, we want true collaboration. And, and so that's, that's one thing that I think that we've done really right. Um, we have a, a team that, that works with, with these governments and Indigenous people groups and, and h- holds public town hall forums to have conversations with local, with the local public, uh, both from an education and a feedback perspective. You know, you can, you can actually learn a lot from a critic if you listen. Um, and so I think, I think we've done a good job of taking a wide range of feedback that we've been given, um, you know, more so on the critical side, less so on the please make a dinosaur side.
- 54:10 – 58:52
What Does this Mean for Human Advancement?
- BLBen Lamm
- CWChris Williamson
Understood. Rolling the clock forward, the next question evidently is, what does this mean for humans? Does this mean that we can change our DNA to survive space flight? Can we give us the strength of Neanderthals? Can we-
- BLBen Lamm
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Can we d- do... I know you work with Chris Mason. He had that thought experiment in his book about if you were able to make humans, uh, do photosynthesis and you'd only need three tennis fields worth of skin and you'd be able to survive just on the sun, like some-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... crazy butterfly of space.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, pla-
- CWChris Williamson
Uh-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, plants are the original solar power.
- CWChris Williamson
Yup. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- BLBen Lamm
... or products.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, okay, so yeah, but-
- BLBen Lamm
Uh, yeah, Chris Mason's-
- CWChris Williamson
R-Roll the clock forward for me. What can we do for humans?
- BLBen Lamm
So, so I think ... So, so just to be transparent, we are not working on humans. Um, we are working on mammals. I think a lot of the technologies that we're developing will have applications, uh, to, to humans. In the case that that occurs, we spin that out at this technology company. We did that last year with Forum Bio, our first, uh, AI-based computational biology platform. But I think as we get better at computational biology, and as we get better at editing, uh, I think the sky is the limit, right? And that's where you need to spend a lot of time on the ethics side of it. So, um, you know, uh, I, I do believe that from a technology perspective, you know, it's not possible or it's not allowed to do germline editing. So, the editing that we are doing in- currently with, with, uh, ma- with i- at Colossal, you can't do that in humans. S- it's not allowed. Um, but I do think that as, uh, that changes, because I do think that there will be a societal change over time with more and more strict policies an- and- and not, not probably strict, but better regulation around gene editing. Because right now it's like, sounds scary, we shouldn't ... We should only do it in these limited cases. But- but it's incredible. So- so let me give you... Let me give you a real world example today, and then I'll tell you about tomorrow. So, uh, th- there ... And I'm probably going to screw it up because I'm not a biologist, but, uh, they found that like, I- I ... You know, I don't know what your cholesterol is, right? But, um, my- my cholesterol is pretty great, but part of it is it's because I've- I've act- ... I actually use a drug that limit ... that- that- that stops and blocks one of the genes in my body, called PKS9. And so what's interesting is there is the- these PKS9 inhibitors, um, uh, P-C-K-S-9 inhibitors, that, um, that literally block how your body produces LDL. So, some people genetically, even if you're a vegan, do everything right, run 1,000 miles a day, you will produce too much LDL, right? It will build up in your system. And, um, this lowers it by, you know, 40% to 70%. It's incredible. And it's not ... well, I'm not ... uh, I have not edited my genome, but I take a drug that, uh, blocks that. So, what about a world where we can edit out that gene where no one ... You know, like, like I- I believe that diabetes and heart disease right now are 100% curable. They're- they're- they're curable. And I'm not just talking about through lifestyle, but I'm not ... Through medications that exist today, right? And so, uh, ef- from- from a human perspective, we are ha- ... I- I take a shot twice a month in order to achieve that, right, to- to- to block that, but fundamentally, I do believe that- that- that's something that could be gene edited at some point, right? And so I think in the near term there will be applications of gene editing and gene therapies that- that cure that. I think in the long term, I don't think Chris Mason is wrong, right? I think that we can become more radiation tolerant. And with more radiation tolerant, that ... People think about, "Oh, that allows us to be a face, uh, uh, space earring species." It also allows less breakdown of our DNA and lets us probably live longer on Earth. Um, and so, um, you know, the sun is not always our best friend in that, right? And so, um, so I do think that- that from, you know ... I- I ... We already know about genes like myostatin. Myostatin, if you've seen the Belgian blue cows, you know, uh, y- we can double muscle mass. We- we can ... That's one edit, right? It's one knockout. Like, I'm not saying you should do it. Uh, some body builders may believe you should do it, (laughs) but, but ... But fundamentally, to- to- to your point, you know, I think that, you know, uh, we- we live in a really interesting time and, you know, from an ethical framework perspective and a regulation perspective, I think that we just have to be mindful of ethics regulation. Um, but- but I do think from a technology perspective, we are surpassing, uh, uh, the rate limits of- of regulation and- and- and ethics in terms of what's possible. More is possible today than we as humans are allowed t- to do.
- CWChris Williamson
Yup. Yeah. I had a- a really interesting conversation with
- 58:52 – 1:09:20
The Ethics of Genetic Enhancement
- CWChris Williamson
Jonathan Anomali, who is out here in Austin and he is about to release, at some point, uh, a company that has been ready for a long time which does, uh, embryo selection. It does embryo selection based on risk for all manner of different things, but it also can select ... It can also select for IQ. Uh, and it doesn't select for IQ, but it gives you a risk profile further up to-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah. And so where does- where does eugenics start and stop, right? I- i- it ... So now-
- CWChris Williamson
But not only that, not only that, not only that, but with w- ... I- I asked him this question, I think it's very interesting, is what's the difference between embryo selection, which you could do right now. Like, you'd just be-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, uh, if you don't have the actual samples you're like closing your eyes and going, "Uh, IVF number five," or whatever, right?
- BLBen Lamm
Yes. Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, what's the d- ... I- is there a difference? Is there a fundamental ethical difference between embryo selection and genetic enhancement? Is there? And his argument-
- BLBen Lamm
Totally. Is no. Uh, yeah, I would argue, I would argue that the answer is no because i- ... People are like, "But we can't create ... Like, GMOs or genetically modified organisms are bad." I'm like, "We've been creating GMOs with crops for thousands of years. We've just been doing it very inefficiently." We've been cross-breeding shit and crossing our fingers, right? And like, that... We've been doing that with dogs. We have dogs that are all different shapes and sizes that aren't even very ... Some of them are genetically disposed of cancer because of w- of the decisions that we have made through selective breeding. But selective breeding is a form of genetic engineering. And so I would argue no, it's really not at its core. And- and so before ... I- I don't know what exactly his tech is, but another company I'm not affiliated with but it's called Orchid Health, George Church also co-founded it, and they actually ... You know, i- in ... When couples have- have a baby, they'll get a ... They'll get genetic testing to see if they're compatible. Some people do compatib- some tests, you know, for Down syndrome and other stuff in womb, right? Sometimes people feel like that's controversial, but people do it. And then, um, what's interesting though now to your IVF point is, once you have those embryos, to your point, you can-... close your, you know, close your eyes and pick one. But what's really interesting is now they're doing a risk score where they're saying, "This, you know, this may be like the absolute best looking, uh, gene or best looking embryo, but you know, we do full genome sequencing on it. Now we can tell you that, you know, it, this has a predisposition to late stage Alzheimer's," right? So-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BLBen Lamm
... do, do you, even though, even though everything else about it's healthy, do you wanna insert that one or do you want to take the gamble that, and we're gonna take the gamble-
- CWChris Williamson
Dude. I mean this is, this, this ultimately is the most interesting part of, uh, what I learned from Jonathan. Um, which is, at the moment what we do is we roll the dice, right? We roll the dice with whichever, whichever is the fastest sperm, whichever is the egg that was timed at the right time of the month or what, whatever, whatever-
- BLBen Lamm
You're right.
- CWChris Williamson
... the particular month that is rolling. And the, it seems like there are a number of defense mechanisms. I learned that, um, around about 50% of all fertilized eggs are cast out of a woman's body without her realizing within the first fortnight. That it's just, you wouldn't, you, you don't even miss anything at all. And there is, you know, you, you could imagine why that would be adaptive that there's something that's not gone quite right here.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Perhaps this is an early warning system that just ejects this particular egg.
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah. That's what-
- CWChris Williamson
Is that a mis-, is that a miscarriage? Eh, uh, if you're unaware of it, kind of.
- BLBen Lamm
And so they, so I, uh, I, I, I don't know if this stat's right, but I, I believe this is in the ballpark. I, I, uh, I think George may have told me this, but, uh, natural birth is about an 8% success rate, which is kind of crazy because there's so many of these early stage, uh, ejections that you don't even know about that, that, that, or that the woman doesn't know, that, that the female doesn't know about. And so it's really interesting, um, you know, 'cause like even IVF only gets you up to 50/50, right? And so like you're, uh, what, what's crazy to me, and part of the reason why I think some of those are only 50/50 is because they are not doing full genome sequencing of the embryos. So you can have a, a developing embryo that, that, that looks great in, in microscope, but it has a genetic defect that at a certain point will not work. Uh, and so-
- CWChris Williamson
The body just says, "Nope."
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah. And so, so you, so you're starting, to your point, it's, it takes, like for if you have this many embryos, you then go through a freezing process, you then go through this, it keeps going down and down and down until you ... But I think that what, what, uh, Jonathan's doing, uh, and what Orchid Health are doing are really, really important. And, you know, but I also believe that, you know, personalized healthcare, everyone needs to take responsibility for that. They should get full genome sequencing. They should know what's, you know, fundamentally not accurate to do the body.
- CWChris Williamson
I had, uh, I, I had mine done, uh, the other, a couple of months ago. I got one copy of the C677T mutation, not associated as a major driver of homocysteine levels. It's not as bad as this other one, blah, blah, blah. Just make sure that you s- supplemate, uh, supplement with B vitamins and some methylated, some other bullshit. Anyway, uh, I had that done. I also went and had a, uh, full body MRI, brain angiogram-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... heart angiogram, DEXA scan.
- BLBen Lamm
Done all. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Have y- did you go to Fountain of Life? Uh, Peter Diamandis says once.
- BLBen Lamm
Uh, I did... No, no. So Peter's a good friend. He's an advisor and investor in Colossal. Uh, no, I've done, I've just done a lot of that individually. I've, I've even done a CT, uh, c- uh, cardiac angiogram scan, which gets you, which then uses this Cleerly analysis, this AI tool, where they can tell more. Think about this, like few years ago they were like still doing, it's, I think people still do, they do angiograms by sticking s- like a cath into your body and going into your heart and looking at it, right? Like that all can be now done with imaging and AI.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BLBen Lamm
So you can see like pre-plaque buildup. It's incredible. And so, um...
- CWChris Williamson
Did you have the, uh, I'm, I, I got an image of, of the, whatever the left ventricle first, first thing out and they were like-
- BLBen Lamm
Yeah, yeah.
- 1:09:20 – 1:09:42
Where to Find Ben
- CWChris Williamson
pressure on my shoulders every day, but I think they've chosen the right guy for the job.
- BLBen Lamm
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Where should people go if they want to keep up to date with all of the-
- BLBen Lamm
Uh, just Coloss-
- CWChris Williamson
... stuff that you're getting up to?
- BLBen Lamm
Colossal.com.
- CWChris Williamson
Hell yeah. Ben, I appreciate you. Thank you, man.
- BLBen Lamm
Awesome. Thank you.
- CWChris Williamson
If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe.
Episode duration: 1:09:42
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