Paris Hilton, Winklevoss Twins-Backed Startup Aims To Bring Extinct Woolly Mammoth Back To Life

A startup, which counts Winklevoss Capital Management, Paris Hilton and public speaker Tony Robbins among its backers, is planning to bring back to life the long-extinct Tasmanian tiger and the woolly mammoth.

What Happened: Gemini Exchange co-founder and Bitcoin BTC/USD-bull Cameron Winklevoss said “Amazing awaits,” on Twitter while sharing a Bloomberg piece on Dallas, Texas-based Colossal Biosciences, the startup bringing back the extinct animals.

Let's bring back the Tasmanian Tiger! @winklevosscap portfolio company @itiscolossal is now working to de-extinct the thylacine in addition to its efforts to bring back the Wooly Mammoth. Amazing awaits.https://t.co/LKMkFMbTdl

— Cameron Winklevoss (@cameron) August 16, 2022

Colossal’s plan involves taking cells from the thylacine animal’s closest non-extinct relatives like the dunnart and engineering them with Tasmanian tiger DNA, reported Bloomberg.

In the case of mammoths, Colossal would take genetic material from Asian elephants and use frozen woolly mammoth DNA to bring the extinct species back to life.

Why It Matters: Colossal was started by technology entrepreneur Ben Lamm and Harvard University geneticist George Church in September last year with $15 million in seed money and the company has since then raised another $60 million, noted Bloomberg.

The executives at the Winklevoss-backed startup say that bringing back the Tasmanian tiger could help in efforts to re-balance Australian ecosystems that have suffered long from sustained loss of biodiversity, according to Bloomberg.

Colossal said in a statement on Tuesday that it had partnered with the University of Melbourne and its Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research Lab, headed up by Andrew Pask. 

Pask was termed a “foremost Tasmanian tiger expert” by the company. He said, “rewilding the thylacine to the Tasmanian landscape can significantly curb the destruction of this natural habitat due to invasive species.”

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