Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson Supports Startups Wanting To Bring Mammoths To Life

Illustration of a woolly mammoth (photo: doc. Antara)

JAKARTA – Founder Cardano (ADA) Charles Hoskinson reportedly supports the startup company Colossal. The biotech company has a program to revive the ancient woolly mammoth.

Colossal is known to have ambitious goals to revive extinct ancient animals by 2027. The company will use the latest gene editing technology CRISPR.

According to U.Today, Harvard Medical School professor George Church launched Colossal with tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm in September 2021 after initially raising $15 million in seed funding.

Meanwhile, in the series A funding round, Colossal managed to raise 60 million US dollars or Rp. 857 billion. The funds came from a number of start-ups led by Legendary Entertainment CEO, Thomas Tull. Crypto-friendly socialite Paris Hilton has also invested in Colossal, along with many other venture capital firms.

There has been years of research into how to bring extinct species back to life by juxtaposing DNA samples taken from fossils with samples of their modern counterparts. Church has spent more than 10 years working to bring woolly mammoths to life. Gene editing pioneers continue to work on mammoth embryos that will be based on the elephant genome.

Regarding this, Hoskinson claims that blockchain can be used for crowdfunding and intellectual property (IP) management. Colossal has repeatedly stressed that their goal is to reverse the collapse of biodiversity that has already occurred on Earth. They also potentially plan to tackle melting ice sheets.

However, Colossal's ambitions have been criticized by a number of parties who claim that resurrecting ancient animals will bring new problems, especially those related to ethical issues. Others suggest that it would be better if companies invest in preserving existing and endangered species.

Actually Colossal is not only focused on raising woolly mammoths, the company is also working to preserve endangered species including the white rhino.