The United Arab Emirates and Colossal Biosciences have revealed plans for the first Colossal BioVault and World Preservation Lab. This groundbreaking facility will have a permanent home at Dubai’s Museum of the Future, marking one of the most ambitious projects yet launched to safeguard Earth’s threatened species.
This nine-figure partnership is intended to protect life on Earth through the cryogenic storage of living cell lines and genetic information from endangered species. The collaboration was announced at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.
A modern Noah’s Ark emerges
His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Defence of the UAE, issued the directive for this major investment.
“I believe the future belongs to those who harness technology and innovation to address our greatest challenges,” said Majed Al Mansoori, Executive Director of the Museum of the Future.
Al Mansoori said the project builds on a longstanding dedication to environmental protection and scientific advancement. During its first year, it will concentrate on field research and DNA studies across species, establishing the scientific basis for future biodiversity protection.
The race against extinction
Scientists believe that almost half of all species on Earth could be at risk of extinction by 2050. The biodiversity crisis has reached levels without precedent, endangering ecosystems around the world as well as the human communities reliant on them.
An Earth.com article reports that experts estimate 30 percent of all species have either faced extinction threats or become extinct since 1500. Based on present trends, that figure may rise to 37 percent by 2100.
The Colossal BioVault is designed to tackle this emergency through a secure, collaborative and scalable system that serves as a backup for life. In contrast with existing biobanking initiatives, which are frequently fragmented and underfunded, the facility will hold millions of samples from more than 10,000 species.
How the Colossal BioVault operates
State-of-the-art technology will be used to protect genetic material over the long term. Sophisticated robotics and AI-driven monitoring systems will precisely monitor, retrieve and preserve samples.
At first, the initiative will concentrate on the 100 most endangered species that are not already banked elsewhere. To record genetic diversity across entire populations, samples will be taken from several individuals within every species.
“We are losing species at an alarming rate, and the world urgently needs a distributed network of global BioVaults. A true backup plan for life on Earth,” said Ben Lamm, co-founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences.
Lamm likened the facility to a modern Noah’s Ark built to protect and renew life on Earth.
Drawing on established preservation models
The Colossal BioVault will become part of an expanding worldwide network of facilities preserving genetic material. Its model draws on successful examples including Norway’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which contains more than 1.3 million seed samples from over 6,200 plant species.
Yet the BioVault will differ substantially from a seed bank. The Svalbard site keeps plant seeds at minus 18 degrees Celsius (0 degrees Fahrenheit), whereas the BioVault will preserve living animal cells at far lower temperatures through proprietary cryopreservation and reanimation technologies.
Founded in 1975, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Frozen Zoo pioneered this method for animal species. It now stores more than 11,500 cell lines from over 1,300 species in liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degrees Celsius (minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit).
Frozen Zoo scientists have already shown the potential of the approach. In 2020, researchers cloned a Przewalski’s horse using cells that had been preserved 40 years earlier. Comparable results have been achieved with black-footed ferrets, showing that cryopreserved cells may restore genetic diversity within endangered populations.
The potential of de-extinction
Colossal Biosciences has established itself at the leading edge of de-extinction science, applying CRISPR gene-editing technology in a possible effort to restore extinct animals including the woolly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger.
The company was founded by emerging technology entrepreneur Ben Lamm and Harvard University’s world-renowned geneticist George Church, Ph.D. It is the first company to use CRISPR technology specifically for species de-extinction.
As well as potentially reviving extinct species, the BioVault will produce genomic data for long-term biodiversity planning, develop reference genomes for poorly studied species and support conservation research around the globe.
Bringing science to the public
Unlike conventional research sites kept out of public view, the Colossal BioVault will be visible to visitors at the Museum of the Future.
Visitors will be able to see scientists at work in real time as they receive field tissue samples, sequence DNA and cryopreserve cell lines. The site will operate both as a working research environment and an educational experience.
Youth education and citizen-science programmes are central to the initiative. By placing learning opportunities and practical participation around the BioVault, organisers aim to equip young people to become the planet’s future stewards.
A worldwide network begins to form
The Dubai site is only the first stage of Colossal’s global plans. The company intends to establish a distributed BioVault network in several countries, providing redundant backup systems for endangered and keystone species worldwide.
Colossal is inviting other countries to add their distinctive biodiversity to the project. Its open-data model will allow scientists around the world to access all non-proprietary information.
The UAE has also led an initial $60 million investment in Colossal through the company’s Series C funding round, taking its total capital raised to $615 million.
Why biobanking is urgent now
Species are currently disappearing at a pace greater than anything recorded since the dinosaurs vanished 66 million years ago. Climate change, habitat loss and human activity continue to drive many species towards extinction.
Conventional conservation measures - including habitat protection, hunting bans and captive-breeding programmes - have rescued many species. Even so, surviving populations frequently come through population bottlenecks with severely reduced genetic diversity.
Biobanking offers a way to return preserved genetic diversity to populations in difficulty. It is intended to complement, not replace, established conservation methods.
“Biodiversity loss is one of our biggest environmental challenges in the world, probably more important than climate change,” noted Professor Johannes Knops of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in a recent study. “If you lose a species, it’s gone forever.”
The Colossal BioVault is humanity’s most ambitious effort so far to ensure that this statement need no longer be true.
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