Colossal Biosciences Secures $150M Series B and Announces Plan to De-Extinct the Iconic Dodo

https://www.businesswire.com ^ | January 31, 2023 09:00 AM ET | Staff

[rigelkentaurus]

They could bring back something like the Velociraptors. Maybe put them on an island somewhere. Nothing could go wrong with that!

[blackdog]

150 million and you’ll get a Rhode Island Red, spray painted and some super glue added parts.

[blackdog]

Rita Hayworth would be nicer.

[Red Badger]

[Red Badger]

Dodos were nearly 3 feet tall................

[EEGator]

I want a pet Thylacine.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Rats killed them. Rats from visiting ships set up shop and ate all the dodo eggs. Rats are still killing the unborn today.

[Red Badger]

It would eat all the cats in the neighborhood.................

[EEGator]

I’ll call him Alf…

[blackdog]

More crazy glue and sticks.

[Jamestown1630]

Was this bird considered necessary or even useful to its environment?

[Nervous Tick]

Theranos — The Sequel

[Red Badger]

Dodo lives matter........................

[EnderWiggin1970]

Let's say you are able to cobble together a functional genome for the Dodo (or any other extinct species). That's a bit like having blueprints for a printing press. By themselves the blueprints won't build the printing press. The Dodo DNA will need to be inserted into an avian egg (whichever living species is most suitable).

But that's the easy part. The reality is that for a fertilized egg to be viable and grow, the entire complex suite of cellular structures and hundreds of proteins in the cell need to be just what is needed to read the DNA and then begin dividing and building the Dodo embryo.

As an analogy, consider walking into a Ford pick-up truck plant with all the blueprints needed to build a Toyota Tundra pick-up. Even though the vehicles are very similar, the reality is that because of innumerable differences in the parts used, the assembly line equipment and so on, an effort to build the Tundra would very quickly bog down, assembly would halt and the effort would fail. In like manner a Dodo embryo will fail to develop without precisely the right suite of proteins matched to the DNA.

Not saying it's absolutely impossible (particularly if closely related living species are available), but there's a LOT more challenge to this than meets the eye.

[xp38]

Yeah they look like smiling scam artists in that image up there.

[Boogieman]

“Innovations in synthetic biology will not only improve the state of the planet, but also further the U.S. high tech advantage.”

Sure, that’s what they always say. Then 30 minutes later we’re all fleeing from 50 foot dodos who can crush automobiles in their beaks.

[Boogieman]

“Too big to fly,
Dodo ugly so dodo must die.” - “Dodo”, Genesis

[wintertime]

I hope to live long enough to see a living Dodo.

[Ex gun maker.]

“....announced plans to de-extinct two essential species: the Woolly Mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger”.

Apparently NOT “essential” as we are doing just fine without them.
The investors are dumber than a Dodo!

Who is going to pay to feed the Elephant/Mammoth hybrids in Alaska if they succeed in bring one or more to term?
I would also expect them to be infertile so not able to reproduce.
To get nearer to an actual Mammoth they would need to add more Mammoth genes over several generations.
So its really just a nice elaborate scam and I am sure it pays well.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

Tastes like chicken.