Ten thousand years after the last woolly mammoths vanished with the last Ice Age, a team of computational biologists is on a mission to bring them back within five years.
Led by synthetic biology pioneer George Church, Colossal Biosciences is also seeking to return the dodo bird and Tasmanian tiger, as well as help save current-day endangered species.
The woolly mammoth is a very iconic species to bring back, said Eriona Hysolli, head of biological sciences at Colossal Biosciences, which is based in Austin, Texas. In addition, we see that pipeline as a proxy for conservation, given that elephants are endangered and much of this work directly benefits them.
There's plenty of work to be done on endangered species, as well.
Critically endangered, the African forest elephant has declined by nearly 90% in the past three decades, according to Colossal. Poaching took more than 100,000 African elephants between 2010 and 2012 alone, according to the company.
We might lose these elephant species in our lifetime if their numbers continue to dwindle, said Hysolli.
Humans caused the extinction of many species, but computational biologists are now trying to bring them back with CRISPR and other gene-editing technologies, leaps in AI, and bioinformatics tools and technology, such as the NVIDIA Parabricks software suite for genomic analysis.
To bring back a woolly mammoth, scientists at Colossal start with mammoth and elephant genome sequencing and identify what makes them similar and different. Then they use Asian elephant cells to engineer mammoth changes responsible for cold adaptation traits, transferring the nuclei of edited cells into elephant enucleated eggs before implanting them into a healthy Asian elephant surrogate.
Tech Advances Drive Genomics Leaps It took enormous effort over two decades, not to mention $3 billion in funding, to first sequence the human genome. But that's now been reduced to mere hours and under $200 per whole genome, thanks to the transformative impact of AI and accelerated computing.
It's a story well known to Colossal co-founder Church. The Harvard Medical School professor and co-founder of roughly 50 biotech startups has been at the forefront of genetics research for decades.
There's been about a 20 millionfold reduction in price, and a similar improvement in quality in a little over a decade, or a decade and a half, Church said in a recent interview on the TWiT podcast.
Research to Complete Reference Genome Puzzle Colossal's work to build a reference genome of the woolly mammoth is similar to trying to complete a puzzle.
DNA sequences from bone samples are assembled in silico. But degradation of the DNA over time means that not all the pieces are there. The gaps to be filled can be guided with the genome from an Asian elephant, the closest living relative for the mammoth.
Once a rough representative genome sequence is configured, secondary analysis takes place, which is where GPU acceleration with Parabricks comes in.
The suite of bioinformatic tools in Parabricks can provide more than 100x acceleration of industry-standard tools used for alignment and variant calling. In the alignment step, the short fragments, or reads, from the sequenced sample are aligned in the correct order, using the reference genome, which in this case is the genome of the Asian elephant. Then, in the variant-calling step, Parabricks tools identify the variants, or differences, between the sequenced whole genome mammoth samples and the Asian elephant reference.
In September, Colossal Biosciences spun out Form Bio, which offers a breakthrough computational life sciences platform, to aid its efforts and commercialize scientific innovations. Form Bio is a member of NVIDIA Inception, a program that provides companies with technology support and AI platforms guidance.
Parabricks includes some of the same tools as the open-source ones that Form Bio was using, making it easy to replace them with NVIDIA GPU-accelerated versions of those tools, said Brandi Cantarel, vice president of bioinformatics at Form Bio.
Compared with the open-source software on CPUs, Parabricks running on GPUs enables Colossal to complete their end-to-end sequence analysis 12x faster and at one-quarter the cost, accelerating the research.
We're getting very comparable or exactly the same outputs, and it was faster and cheaper, said Cantarel.
Analysis Targeting Cold Tolerance for Woolly Mammoth A lot is at stake in the sequencing and analysis.
The Form Bio platform hosts tools that can assess whether researchers make the right CRISPR edits and assist in analysis for whether cells are edited.
Can we identify what are the targets that we need to actually go after and edit and engineer? The answer is absolutely yes, and we've gotten very good at selecting impactful genetic differences, said Hysolli.
Another factor to consider is human contamination to samples. So for each sample researchers examine, they must do analysis against human cell references to discard those contaminants.
Scientists have gathered multiple specimens of woolly mammoths over the years, and the best are tooth or bone samples found in permafrost. We benefit from the fact that woolly mammoths were well-preserved because they lived in an Arctic environment, said Hysolli.
An Asian elephant is 99.6% the same as a mammoth genetically, according Ben Lamm, Colossal CEO and co-founder.
We're just targeting about 65 genes that represent the cold tolerance, the core phenotypes that we're looking for, he recently said on stage at South by Southwest in Austin.
Benefits to Biodiversity, Conservation and Humanity Colossal aims to create reference genomes for species, like the mammoth, that represent broad population samples. They're looking at mammoths from different regions of the globe and
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
04/12/2025
SBS launches Future Frames initiative to support emerging First Nations video ed...
04/12/2025
Coronal mass ejections caused by eruptions on the surface of the sun can have fa...
04/12/2025
Gracenote Content Connect enables media ecosystem to precisely align ad campaigns and programming based on rich content signals
NEW YORK - December 4, 2025 - N...
Ten thousand years after the last woolly mammoths vanished with the last Ice Age, a team of computational biologists is on a mission to bring them back within five years.
