Colossal Biosciences, the genetic engineering startup striving to convey again extinct species and defend endangered ones, has introduced on James Reed as director for a multi-year documentary sequence. The episodes will chronicle Colossal’s makes an attempt to revive species just like the woolly mammoth and the dodo chicken.

^{A view of an enormous mammoth fully assembled. (Photograph by Ana Fernandez/SOPA Photographs/LightRocket by way of Getty Photographs)}

Reed labored on the Oscar-winning Netflix documentary “My Octopus Trainer,” a movie that adopted a filmmaker’s bond with an octopus over a 12 months. On this new enterprise with Colossal, Reed and his producing companion Matt Houghton could have unique entry to Colossal’s efforts over the subsequent few years and take viewers behind the scenes.

The docuseries will provide an inside take a look at Colossal’s de-extinction tasks and its modern conservation expertise that goals to guard endangered species, akin to elephants and Northern white rhinos. The sequence will even study how Colossal is utilizing AI to grasp animal habits and the potential affect of rewilding.

Reed, Houghton, and Colossal will all work along with Jillian Share for Teton Ridge Leisure and government producer Michael Dougherty on the undertaking. Teton Ridge Leisure will financially again the primary part of manufacturing, with the last word purpose of discovering a distribution companion.

Associated: This Meatball Is Mammoth. Severely, It is Made From the Prehistoric Woolly Elephant.

It is unclear how a lot the docuseries will value and when it would air presently.

Colossal was shaped in 2021 round the concept bringing again extinct species might enhance life right now. The woolly mammoth, for instance, might assist battle local weather change by limiting the greenhouse gases launched from the Arctic attributable to world warming. Bringing again the mammoth will educate scientists extra about gene modifying, which might assist with real-life enhancements like stopping illness in human beings. Colossal has raised $225 million in whole funds, bringing its valuation to over $1 billion.

In a 2021 interview with Entrepreneur, Colossal co-founder Ben Lamm acknowledged that the corporate’s aim was to have its first woolly mammoth calves inside six years. The plan is to take pores and skin cells from Asian elephants and put them into stem cells with frozen mammoth DNA to type an embryo. The embryo would then be positioned in a synthetic womb in a lab or carried to time period by a surrogate mom.

By recreating the woolly mammoth, Lamm acknowledged that Colossal would have a “de-extinction toolkit” that the corporate might additionally use to protect critically endangered species.

A priority leveled towards the startup is that issues might go unsuitable because it experiments with bringing again animals. On the subject of potential unhealthy actors or opposed penalties, Lamm stated “so long as we’re clear, folks can maintain us accountable.”