Ben Lamm tells World Government Summit de-extinction is no longer science fiction
What once belonged firmly to the realm of ‘ Jurassic Park’ fantasy is edging closer to scientific reality and Dubai wants a front-row seat.
At the World Governments Summit, an audience of policymakers, futurists and technologists leaned forward as Ben Lamm, co-founder and CEO of US biotech firm Colossal Biosciences, laid out what he cheerfully called one of humanity’s biggest “moonshots”: bringing extinct species such as the woolly mammoth and the dodo back to life.
A moonshot to save biodiversity
Speaking at a session titled: ‘Can governments keep up with human imagination?’, Lamm framed de-extinction not as a stunt, but as a response to what scientists increasingly describe as an existential biodiversity crisis. If current trends continue, he warned, the planet could lose up to 50 per cent of its biodiversity within the next 25 years.
The idea, Lamm said, took hold after an early conversation with Harvard geneticist George Church – often dubbed the “father of synthetic biology”, who convinced him that the tools to attempt de-extinction already exist.
“I felt it was a true opportunity to change the world. I was pretty hooked from day one,” Lamm said.
