Texas bioscience company makes colossal move to resurrect the extinct woolly mammoth

big news

Ben Lamm and George Church are pioneering colossal de-extinction technology. Courtesy of Colossal

In a move that may conjure up fanciful thoughts of a particular Steven Spielberg film, a newly launched bioscience and genetics company with ties to Austin and Dallas is pioneering a plan to ensure the long extinct woolly mammoth will once again trudge through the Arctic tundra.

(No need to panic, movie fans, as the furry beast is an herbivore and has no taste for human flesh, lest we forget the lessons learned from Jurassic Park.)

The appropriately named Colossal, which is based across Austin, Dallas, and Boston, has secured $15 million in funding from a variety of sources (including Austin-based Capital Factory and famed self-help guru Tony Robbins) to bring the woolly mammoth back from its roughly 10,000-year extinction.

Colossal, the brainchild of Baylor University grad and tech and software entrepreneur Ben Lamm and George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School who has innovated new approaches to gene editing. Their goal is to pioneer animal de-extinction technology to restore lost ecosystems for a healthier planet. And they're starting by resurrecting the woolly mammoth back to its cold-resistant, curled-tusk, fur-covered glory.

Specifically, Colossal will work to bring to life a cold-resistant elephant-mammoth hybrid with the core biological traits of the woolly mammoth, meaning it will walk, look, and sound like the giant creature, and will be able to inhabit the same ecosystem left abandoned by the woolly mammoth's extinction.

The company uses breakthrough advances in CRISPR genetic engineering to make such scientific dreams a reality. It's all in an effort to "rewild lost habitats and help combat the effects of climate change and the loss of biodiversity." And Colossal notes that its gene-editing process also has the potential to help advance biotechnology products and genomics while also treating diseases. Such technological advancements will also be used to help recover species on the brink of extinction.

"Never before has humanity been able to harness the power of this technology to rebuild ecosystems, heal our Earth, and preserve its future through the repopulation of extinct animals," Lamm says in a release. "In addition to bringing back ancient extinct species like the woolly mammoth, we will be able to leverage our technologies to help preserve critically endangered species that are on the verge of extinction and restore animals where humankind had a hand in their demise."

Indeed, Colossal points to a 2019 United Nations report that warned that more than 1 million animal, plant, and fungi species are now threatened with extinction. That situation could domino, leading to the collapse of ecosystems and negatively impacting human health and livelihood.

By resurrecting certain extinct species, Colossal hopes to rewild habitats and revitalize lost ecosystems, thereby creating a healthier planet. To wit, restoring the woolly mammoth can potentially revitalize the Arctic grasslands, which could combat the dire effects of climate change through a variety of properties, including carbon sequestering, methane suppression, and light reflection.

"Technologies discovered in pursuit of this grand vision — a living, walking proxy of a woolly mammoth — could create very significant opportunities in conservation and beyond, not least of which include inspiring public interest in STEM, prompting timely discussions in bioethics, and raising awareness of the vital importance of biodiversity," Church says.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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NASA unveils Artemis III astronauts at Johnson Space Center in Houston

To the moon

NASA on Tuesday, June 9, revealed the crew for its Artemis III mission, the next step in the space agency's plan to eventually land astronauts on the moon.

The announcement came two months after Artemis II's record-breaking trip around the moon that surpassed the distance record of Apollo 13.

NASA's Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, Andre Douglas and the European Space Agency's Luca Parmitano won't fly to the moon or land on the surface. Instead, they’ll orbit Earth while practicing docking their Orion capsule with two lunar landers.

“To the Artemis III crew, we wish you Godspeed on the journey ahead,” said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are racing to deliver the lunar landers. The two-week demo is targeted for 2027. Blue Origin suffered a recent setback when its massive rocket exploded during an engine-firing test on the launch pad in Florida, shaking nearby homes and illuminating the sky with an orange fireball.

NASA's Jeremy Parsons said the setback is a learning opportunity and that the space agency is confident Blue Origin's rocket will be ready in time.

NASA's Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon's surface for the first time since the 1970s. A recent revamp of the program announced by Isaacman aims to fast-track it similarly to the Apollo era, adding the upcoming spaceflight around Earth before eyeing a lunar landing in 2028.

“We are certainly humbled as a crew to be able to be your crew that executes this Artemis III mission in space,” said Bresnik, Artemis III commander.

Added Douglas, mission specialist: “My brain — it is going a mile a minute right now. But my heart, it is so warm. It is so full."

In May, NASA awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four companies, including Blue Origin, to build landers, rovers and drones for a future moon base. Isaacman said the goal of the moon base is to lay the foundation for a Mars expedition.

Meta to bring $115 million AI data center training initiative to Houston

ai workforce

Meta and Associated Builders and Contractors have entered into a partnership to invest $115 million in training programs for the construction of AI data centers, with a portion of the project launching in Houston.

The companies announced June 8 that they would open America’s Workforce Academies at ABC chapter training centers in Houston; Indianapolis; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Columbus, Ohio.

The academies will offer career readiness and safety training, plus five weeks of hands-on education. Participants who complete the program will be granted a job offer from contractors working on Meta projects.

“The AI revolution is bringing change but also historic opportunities,” Dina Powell McCormick, Meta president and vice-chairman, said in a news release. “Skilled workers electrified rural America one pole at a time. They manned the factories that built the arsenal that won World War II. Now a new generation will pour the foundations and lay the fiber that secures American strength in this new age.”

Overall, the Meta and ABC aim for the academies to build a more sustainable pipeline of skilled construction workers and ensure safety and job readiness for the surging number of data center projects underway.

“This new program is an innovative talent solution that is a critical part of addressing the construction industry’s ongoing workforce shortage and creates an accelerated, new-entrant strategy for job seekers ... The sustained demand for data center construction technicians means the industry needs an all-of-the-above approach to address this shortage and grow the construction talent pool,” Michael Bellaman, ABC president and CEO, added in the release.

In Texas, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has launched or broken ground on data centers in El Paso, Fort Worth and Temple. The company announced in March that it planned to grow its El Paso Data center by 1 gigawatt, representing more than a $10 billion investment.

Apart from Meta, Texas has attracted data center development to power other giants like Google and Amazon in recent years. In turn, Texas has been predicted to become the biggest data center market. Commercial real estate services provider JLL reported this spring that the state could topple Northern Virginia as the world’s largest data-center market by 2030. Similarly, CBRE predicted that Houston's data center capacity could double by 2028. Read more here.

New Houston biotech co. lands $30M for pulmonary fibrosis drug

drug money

Most of us can claim a scar or two on our bodies. But when scarring develops inside the body, it’s known as a fibrotic disorder. A freshly launched Houston company, Oorja Bio Inc., is working on a treatment that can help to repair cells and reduce the damage wrought by the growth of fibrotic tissue in patients.

Late last month, Oorja Bio hit the scene with a pair of big announcements. Not only has the company raised a $30 million Series A thanks to founding investor California-based Westlake BioPartners, but it has also already paved the way for a Phase 2 study to take place this year.

Oorja Bio received Investigational New Drug (IND) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), allowing the company to test its treatment in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a scarring of the lung tissue. IPF affects more than 150,000 adults in the United States and can result in a range of symptoms from shortness of breath to organ failure and death as it progresses.

Oorja Bio’s lead drug candidate, ORJ-001, was shown in a Phase 1 in-human trial to demonstrate “therapeutically relevant exposure and favorable tolerability” in 64 healthy adult volunteers in whom it was administered daily or weekly, according to a news release. Pre-clinical studies of ORJ-001 showed durable target tissue engagement and biomarker activity in bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis.

Administered subcutaneously, ORJ-001 is intended to improve and even restore function in cells that can reduce the signaling that causes IPF. It stops advancement of IPF and also allows for tissue repair. Currently available treatments for the disease can slow the development of IPF down, but do not address the declining lung function that’s inherent in its progression.

“The clinical and preclinical results from our studies to date give us confidence that ORJ-001 represents a novel treatment approach with the potential to repair and reverse fibrosis and modify disease progression in IPF,” Dr. Janethe Pena, CMO of Oorja Bio, said in the release.

“Our team is energized to deliver on our goal of redefining the future of fibrotic diseases, beginning with ORJ-001,” CEO and founder Sujay Kango added. “As we advance ORJ-001 in the clinic, we are embracing the paradigm shift in our biological understanding of IPF pathology that aligns with the central role of the alveolar epithelium. ORJ-001 was designed with this biology in mind and may provide, for the first time, a therapeutic intervention that repairs and reverses fibrosis and promotes disease modification.”

Most patients live only three to five years following their IPF diagnosis. Soon, ORJ-001 and Oorja Bio could give them a fighting chance.

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