Joe Rogan Experience #2301 - Ben Lamm
Ben Lamm (guest), Narrator, Joe Rogan (host), Narrator, Narrator, Narrator
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Ben Lamm and Narrator, Joe Rogan Experience #2301 - Ben Lamm explores inside Colossal: De-Extinction, Dire Wolves, And Rewriting Evolution’s Future Joe Rogan interviews Ben Lamm, CEO and co‑founder of Colossal Biosciences, a company focused on de‑extinction and species preservation using synthetic biology, AI, and advanced gene editing.
Inside Colossal: De-Extinction, Dire Wolves, And Rewriting Evolution’s Future
Joe Rogan interviews Ben Lamm, CEO and co‑founder of Colossal Biosciences, a company focused on de‑extinction and species preservation using synthetic biology, AI, and advanced gene editing.
Lamm explains how they reconstruct ancient genomes from degraded DNA, compare them to living relatives, and use tools like CRISPR to engineer animals with extinct traits—demonstrated by woolly mice, cloned red wolves, and newly created dire wolves.
They discuss the ecological rationale for de‑extinction (e.g., mammoths in Arctic ecosystems, thylacines in Tasmania, toxin‑resistant marsupials in Australia) and the parallel development of tools like artificial wombs and plastic‑eating microbes.
Throughout, they confront ethical, ecological, and geopolitical questions about “playing God,” regulatory lag, potential misuse by other nations, and how far humanity should go in redesigning life and even ourselves.
Key Takeaways
De‑extinction is now technically feasible for some species using existing tools.
By assembling fragmented ancient DNA, aligning it with a close living relative, and editing key genes that control traits like hair, fat, size, and skull shape, Colossal can create living animals that are functionally equivalent to extinct species (e. ...
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The same technologies used for “Jurassic Park–style” projects can directly aid conservation today.
Colossal is cloning critically endangered red wolves from blood samples, engineering marsupials to resist cane toad toxins, building population genomic maps for bison, and open‑sourcing tools so zoos and governments can clone or genetically rescue species without invasive tissue sampling.
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Ecological impact modeling is central: the goal is functional de‑extinction, not just spectacle.
For mammoths, thylacines, and wolves, Colossal works with ecologists, indigenous groups, and governments to model how restored predators or megafauna would affect vegetation, prey species, disease dynamics, and landscape processes—aiming to replicate lost ecological roles rather than simply resurrect “cool animals.”
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Ethical and philosophical debates hinge on the concept of “species” itself.
Lamm argues that speciation is a human construct with inconsistent definitions (genetic, reproductive, geographic, morphological), so insisting a gene‑edited mammoth or dire wolf “isn’t really one” is more philosophy than science—what matters ecologically is function, behavior, and phenotype.
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Government processes and ideology are major bottlenecks compared to the science.
In one example, U. ...
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Synthetic biology, paired with AI and future computing (e.g., quantum), is as transformative—and risky—as AI itself.
Colossal’s work shows how precisely we can now rewrite genomes (single‑nucleotide edits, multiplex editing at scale, artificial wombs, environment‑specific enzymes), while China and others are aggressively biobanking and studying human genetic traits like intelligence, raising geopolitical and eugenic concerns.
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Public fascination and kids’ curiosity are powerful drivers for funding and cultural acceptance.
Investor interest (e. ...
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Notable Quotes
“We’re the world’s first de‑extinction and species preservation company.”
— Ben Lamm
“It’s not just a mammoth question, it’s a software and AI problem—assembling a shitty jigsaw puzzle where you don’t know what the box looks like.”
— Ben Lamm
“You guys made three dire wolves. That’s not moderately bold. That’s one of the craziest things a human has ever done.”
— Joe Rogan
“Speciation is a human construct—we’re trying to impose a rock definition on something that flows more like a river.”
— Ben Lamm
“Synthetic biology is like discovering fire. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, and it will end up in nefarious hands too.”
— Ben Lamm
Questions Answered in This Episode
Where should we draw the ethical line between restoring lost ecosystems and creating entirely novel life forms for human purposes?
Joe Rogan interviews Ben Lamm, CEO and co‑founder of Colossal Biosciences, a company focused on de‑extinction and species preservation using synthetic biology, AI, and advanced gene editing.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How do we design global governance or safeguards so that powerful genetic engineering tools aren’t misused by states or private actors?
Lamm explains how they reconstruct ancient genomes from degraded DNA, compare them to living relatives, and use tools like CRISPR to engineer animals with extinct traits—demonstrated by woolly mice, cloned red wolves, and newly created dire wolves.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
If functional de‑extinction becomes routine, should society prioritize bringing back human‑driven extinctions or focus solely on preventing current biodiversity loss?
They discuss the ecological rationale for de‑extinction (e. ...
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What are the long‑term consequences—ecological, cultural, and psychological—of humans directly designing apex predators and megafauna that will outlive us?
Throughout, they confront ethical, ecological, and geopolitical questions about “playing God,” regulatory lag, potential misuse by other nations, and how far humanity should go in redesigning life and even ourselves.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
As tools like artificial wombs and embryo‑level genome editing mature, how do we prevent a slide from medical use (disease prevention) into consumer eugenics (designer traits)?
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Transcript Preview
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) All right, we're up. What's up, Ben?
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
My pleasure. Very nice to meet you, man. So, uh, why don't you, instead of me ex- why don't you explain to people what you do?
So, I'm, uh, the CEO and co-founder of a company called Colossal Biosciences. We're the world's first de-extinction and species preservation company.
Yeah. And-
(laughs)
... uh, that is a wild thing. I mean, this is, uh, essentially, um, literally wild. This is essentially real life Jurassic Park.
Yeah, we get to Jurassic Park c- occasionally. Like, believe it or not, we get to that.
(coughs) Of course. I mean-
I gotta drop my hydrogen tablet in there, so-
Oh, you do those? The Gary Brecka ones, right?
Oh, yeah. I'm all in.
Those are great.
Yeah, so.
Yeah, I love those. Um-
I just didn't want you to think it was, we were going a different direction-
How did you get started even thinking about doing something like this?
So, I kind of fell into it. I didn't plan, I didn't wake up and say, "I saw Jurassic Park, I'm super stoked, I love animals, I wanna go work on this." Um, I'm just a weirdly curious person. So, there's this guy named George Church, and if you don't know George, you should look him up. He's the father of synthetic biology. He's at Harvard University. He's f- six foot seven with narcolepsy. He's just the best, right? So, if you've ever had him on, he may fall asleep during the podcast, but he's just, he's the absolute best. He's a genius. And I thought, uh, my background's in software and just building teams of people that are smarter than me, right? And so, I, I was interested in synthetic biology, this idea that we could engineer life, and that we could use AI and compute to make it even better. Like, how do we do directed evolution and how, and how that can apply to, like, crops and animals and all kinds of stuff. So, I get on the phone with George, and I ask him my questions. He answers them in, like, six seconds 'cause he's a genius. And then I start asking about all the other weird stuff that's coming out of his lab. In that process, he's like, "You know, I've also been working on mammoths and other things." I was like, "Wait, wait, what?" And I was like, "If you had one project, w- what, is it this mammoth project?" And then he went down this whole path about how he'd bring back mammoths, reintroduce them in the Arctic, help the ecosystem, use those technologies for conservation, use those technologies for human healthcare. And I kind of thought it was a fucking joke. I literally thought that, like, the smartest man I've ever met and been on the phone with was a joke. Well, then I stayed up all night just googling George, and there was this weird mammoth through line. Whether it was in 60 Minutes or, you know, Stephen Colbert, or whatever he was in, there was this weird mammoth through line, where he was just obsessed with these mammoths. And everyone kind of wanted him to do this. So, I called him back the next day. Seven days later, I'm in his lab and we were off to the races on, okay, we're gonna try to go build a company to bring back extinct species.
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