00:00I think the most exciting thing in 2026 is bringing back extinct species and also protecting
00:06them through bio vaults which we're launching here at the world government summit. Do you think
00:09people realize quite how many species are in threat of being extinct? I do not believe that
00:15people understand the extinction crisis we're in but we are in the sixth mass extinction which is
00:21being accelerated by man and I hope more and more people learn about it through some of the work
00:25we're doing on the woolly mammoth and other projects. What is it you're doing? So Colossal is the world's
00:31first de-extinction and species preservation company. Most people just know us for like the
00:36woolly mammoth, the direwolf, the dodo bird and others. We're actually working to also save species
00:40and apply those technologies to conservation today. Is this proven? Is it going to happen? Yeah I think
00:50you know we've built a pretty large business of 260 scientists, 17 academic universities around
00:55the world, 80 postdocs in academia all working towards this. We actually engineered the world's
01:00first woolly mouse last year. We engineered the traits from a mammoth into that of a mouse and we
01:05actually then took a 73,000 year old skull and made puppies and brought direwolves back which have
01:10been extinct for 12,000 years and we did both of that in 2026. I think 2027 is going to
01:15be a pretty
01:16big year too. How do you balance bringing back species that people are popular versus those that
01:23might be essential to the planet? You have to do both right? This is not an either or, this is
01:28an
01:28and. We have to have more and more technologies and that's why the bio vault is so important right?
01:33We do need a de-extinction toolkit because we're going to lose up to 50 percent of all biodiversity
01:38between now and 2050 and most people love the fluffy little things but they may not care about
01:42a lizard or a frog. That's why building bio vaults are so critical to our success.
01:48Do you want to talk about the bio vault being here?
01:50Yeah. So we're very excited at the World Government Summit to launch the world's first bio vault,
01:56the equivalent of the sea vault only for animals. We're launching it here in Dubai. We're also doing
02:00it in a museum so it's not in some secret location. We're launching it at the Museum of the Future
02:05so that we can bring people in and wrap educational content around it for kids.
02:10We're on the edge of a climate crisis. If we can do this for species, what can we do for
02:17the climate?
02:17I think species go hand in hand with climate change, right? We know that a more robust environment
02:24has more biodiversity in it. So if we can save and preserve biodiversity, they will actually
02:28help us with our climate crisis.
02:30And how important is it for you to be here, not just because you announced it with the UAE,
02:34but also because all the heads of world governments are here?
02:37It was so wonderful to do this at the World Government Summit, not just because it's in Dubai
02:41and not just because of the UAE government, but because we have so many world leaders
02:45that have incredible biodiversity that they're all losing. People from Malaysia, people from Africa
02:50have come up to me after my talk saying, oh my gosh, how can we apply these technologies
02:54to save my critically endangered X or Y? So I think launching the World Government Summit
02:58was the perfect place to do it.
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