Colossal Biosciences brings SI into reconstructing the dodo genome; the bird is promised back in the early 2030s
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
SI is helping assemble the genome of an extinct bird from scraps of DNA, but the date of the dodo's return is so far only the company's goal.
Colossal Biosciences (Dallas) announced that SI is helping fill gaps in dodo DNA: few ancient samples survive and they are degraded. According to CEO Ben Lamm, "de-extinction is as much a data problem as a biology problem": SI studies how regulatory DNA shapes living birds and looks for "genetic switches" that may have determined the dodo's features. TIME writes that the bird will probably appear in the early 2030s; per the outlet's description, the plan is to take primordial germ cells from the Nicobar pigeon, insert dodo traits into them and inject them into a chicken egg. The company previously claimed to have "brought back" the dire wolf in 2025; that is its own assertion.
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