Masters of Scale
Resurrecting dire wolves is just the beginning for Colossal Biosciences’ Ben Lamm
23 Dec 2025
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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As we head toward the end of 2026, we're delighted to share one of our favorite rapid response episodes of the year, recorded back in the spring, but as timely and forward-focused as ever. It's about the storybook-like resurrection of the long extinct dire wolf with the CEO of Colossal Biosciences, Ben Lamb. Enjoy it. If people don't know what a dire wolf was, it wasn't just in Game of Thrones.
They're a wolf that existed in North America and they went extinct about 12,500 years ago until recently. We took a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull and then through a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer, aka cloning, you get an embryo, you put it into a domestic dog. 60 days later, we had our first dire wolf puppies.
What do you say to people who say like, oh, it's wrong to mess with nature. It's plain God. I think that, you know, given that we're going to lose up to 50% of biodiversity between now and 2050, we have a moral obligation to do something. That's Ben Lamb, co-founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences, the startup behind the recent viral return of the formerly extinct dire wolf.
The story has garnered a lot of excitement, but equally sparked a debate about whether these dire wolves are the real thing and whether it's ethical to birth and rewild extinct animals. I asked Ben about all of this, plus how the startup attracted a roster of celebrity investors and what other animals Colossal is working on bringing back next.
Whether it's lessons from Jurassic Park, cutting-edge genetic science, or the need to build your own ethical framework, Ben is provocative and compelling. So let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response. I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Ben Lamb, co-founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences. Ben, thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here.
So Colossal first came onto my radar through news about trying to resurrect the Wooly Mammoth. Colossal managed to produce some Wooly Mammoth traits in a mouse that was dubbed the Wooly Mouse, but nothing has gotten attention like the announcement that you've brought back, the long extinct Dire Wolf.
Now, for people who aren't fans of Game of Thrones or Dungeons & Dragons or thought Dire Wolfs only existed in fantasy, What is a dire wolf? And of all the creatures that have disappeared, why did you focus on this one? So we started, the dire wolf just kind of happened. You know, most people know us about the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger and the dodo. And we still are pursuing those.
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Chapter 2: What sparked the interest in resurrecting the dire wolf?
And we took a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull. And we took that, we took all the ancient DNA that we could find out of that. And a lot of times it comes up empty. We put it into a machine. It gives us a genome. And we compare it to that closest living relative being the gray wolf.
And with that, we can actually identify what genes really made a dire wolf a dire wolf in terms of the physical attributes or phenotypes that existed. And with that, we then use a combination of genome engineering tools. to take those genes, engineer that DNA into the closest living cells, which are gray wolves.
And then through a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer, AKA cloning, you get an embryo, you put it into a domestic dog. 60 days later, we had our first dire wolf puppies. So it's not that everything comes from the DNA that you found in these bones.
It's that you're sort of tweaking the DNA of existing gray wolves to more closely mimic or mirror the DNA that you found in these ancient bones. Am I explaining that the right way? Yeah, I mean, it's pretty close, right? It gets super nuanced, right? Because like gray wolves are 99.5% dire wolves already. So you don't mess with any of that, right?
It's the same body plan, same canage lineage, same reproductive organs, same placental types. All of that is the exact same, right? So you just kind of leave that alone, right? Because you know it produces a wolf. very much like Jurassic Park. A lot of people have seen Jurassic Park.
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Chapter 3: How does Colossal Biosciences plan to de-extinct the dire wolf?
When people see Jurassic Park, it's very similar. They took ancient DNA, they took bird DNA, they took in some movies frog DNA, and the later movies, they put everything in the kitchen sink in it to essentially bring back these phenotypes. But just like in the movie, it's not possible to clone a dinosaur. Those were genetically modified birds with dinosaur alleles.
That's the same thing with our dire wolves. That's the same thing with the mammoths we're working on and everything. And so it is the closest approximation, but it isn't just engineered to look like a dire wolf. It is actually using the dire wolf specific genes that drove those traits, right?
And so one of the things that's pretty cool is that we had no idea that dire wolves were white until we got all this ancient DNA. People thought that they were red or orange or some kind of khaki color because they've seen... paleo art that depicts them of that color. But in reality, based on the data that we got from the genome, they were white. And so that was pretty cool.
So that so we learned a lot of stuff from the genome that, you know, people didn't even know about direwolves to begin with. There's been some controversy, right, about whether these are truly dire wolves rather than gray wolves that have been sort of genetically engineered to share some dire-like traits. Are those criticisms reasonable?
Because it does sound a little bit like it's a new species, right? It's not really a new species. Right. And part of that. So I'm a big believer in personal choice and freedom. Right.
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Chapter 4: What ethical concerns arise from de-extinction efforts?
And so people are like, doesn't it bother you that like some of the scientific community is pushed back? And I was like, no, I think that's the beauty of science. Right. And and some people, though, are quite mad about it. But the reality is, is that we've done things in this project that no one's ever done. No one's ever taken anything.
you know, and edited 15 genes with ancient genomes that have been lost to time for 12,000. No one's ever done that. And so the problem with the argument isn't one, it doesn't bother me, but my issue with it is I think it over shadows the incredible science of the women and men that have done this, right? Like they took 12,000 year old DNA and made puppies and That's incredible.
That is that's the moon landing of genetics. Right. And so my argument is, is that if people want to call them direwolves, call them direwolves. If they want to call them colossal direwolves, call them direwolves. If they want to call them genetically modified wolves, call them that. But it's still amazing. It's like if you go to Jurassic Park and you believe that movie is about dinosaurs.
then our dire wolves are dire wolves. If you go to Jurassic Park and say, those are genetically modified birds with dinosaur alleles and frog DNA, well, then ours are genetically modified wolves with dire wolf alleles to it, right? And so it's really a semantics issue.
But what's crazy, and I didn't know this because I'm not a biologist or a scientist, is that there's actually over 30 ways to classify a species. And, you know, while some of the scientific community push back, we have over 95 of some of the top scientific, you know, minds in the world. Right.
We've got people like George Church and Luba Dolan and Tom Gilbert and, you know, Andrew Pask and Bess Shapiro, who's arguably the number one ancient DNA expert in the world who wrote a book saying how to clone a mammoth.
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Chapter 5: How does Colossal's technology impact conservation efforts?
And it is with you can't. Because you cannot clone an extinct species, but you can engineer one. And that's exactly what we're doing. We're trying to rebuild extinct species for today using data from the past. And, you know, the only thing that annoyed me about the argument was it's a semantic argument.
And it's a semantic argument that overshadowed a lot of the great scientists that people put their blood, sweat and tears in. And, you know, I think over time that'll die down and people will just like look at the science, which is truly amazing and what it can do for not just human health care, but also for, you know, endangered species. You mentioned that you're not a scientist.
Your background is not in bioscience. You've been a tech entrepreneur.
Chapter 6: What role does celebrity investment play in Colossal's success?
And you got excited about this idea because of the business opportunities? I mean, Colossal is a for-profit business, right? Yes, we are a for-profit business. You know, the reality is I had built a handful of software companies. I liked building technology businesses. I didn't mean to start this business. I reached out to George Church.
He's the number one geneticist in the world, maybe of all time at Harvard. And he's definitely the father of synthetic biology. And I reached out to him and I just asked him, you know, with the proliferation of access to compute technology, AI, automation, synthetic biology. Like, what are the opportunities? Is there an opportunity to build software for synthetic biology and directed evolution?
What are the opportunities? And I asked him if he had one project with unlimited capital that he thought could change the world, what would it be? And it was this one. I'm not a biologist, but I like to learn new things. And I know how to build teams of women and men much smarter than me. And I thought this would be something that's cool.
And now that I have a nine-month-old son, I'm pretty stoked that we're working on something that can have a huge application to conservation as well as advanced science. And it's also something that can inspire generations. And we don't get a lot of credit for this. And I think it's our fault. We don't do a good job. But every single week, we get pictures...
from kids talking about their favorite animals. And we have whole classrooms that send us thank you videos and stuff. And so it's cool, right? Yes, there's a conservation element. Yes, there's a deep science element. But there's this kind of cool inspiration element to it. And so... I can just go build another software company, but to what end, right?
To make a little bit better of a chat platform, to make a little bit better of a defense software, to make more money. At some point, I think there's got to be more to it. And this is something that I was really passionate about. And this de-extinction, is the idea that bringing back these species, what, puts our environment into better balance?
Or is it just like, they're cool to have these creatures around? Well, it's kind of threefold, right? It is cool. If a kid sees that using genetics, you can make a woolly mammoth, I do think that inspires kids. I know a lot of scientists that don't want to make dinosaurs, but they saw Jurassic Park and they became geneticists because they thought it was cool.
So there is a cool factor to your point. Secondly, it's conservation. It's forecasted that we're going to lose up to 50% of all biodiversity between now and 2050 if we don't do anything about it. We know conservation works. This is not a substitute for conservation. It just doesn't work at the speed at which we're eradicating species and changing our planet. So we need new tools in all.
All of the technology that Colossal makes on the path to de-extinction that has an application to conservation, we make available for free to our conservation partners, right? And if that wasn't enough, we then went and raised $50 million separate of our business to start the Colossal Foundation to fund even other academics working on technologies that can help conservation.
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