Transcript
Ben (00:00:00) - Where I see synthetic biology going is I see a world where we understand enough about genotype to phenotype relationships from a computational analysis perspective, that we can start to engineer life, right? Like we can start to shape life in a way that helps.
Daniel (00:00:25) - Welcome to the Five Frontier Podcast, a preview of the future to the eyes of the innovators shaping our world. Through short, insight-packed discussions, I seek to bring you a glimpse of what a key industry could look like five years out. I'm your host, Daniel Darling, a venture capitalist at Focal, where I spend my days with founders at the very start of their journey to transform an industry the best, to have a distinct vision of what's to come, a guiding North Star they're building towards. And that's what I'm here to share with you. In today's episode, we're talking about the future of genetic engineering. In it, we cover de-extinction, growing the woolly mammoth, human longevity, AI-led drug discovery, and the future of biotech. Our guide will be Ben Lamm, CEO of Colossal Biosciences, a Texas-based biotech company on a mission to safeguard our world's biodiversity and rewild our planet.
Daniel (00:01:12) - As part of that, they are endeavoring to bring back extinct species such as the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the Tasmanian tiger. As early as 2028, Colossal has raised $225 million to date and is a truly revolutionary organization, pushing the frontier of genetic engineering with some of the leading minds of the field. The innovations developed from their research have impacts far beyond animal conservation and advance our ability to fight diseases, uncover new drugs, protect our climate, reproduce successfully, and even extend human lifespan. Ben comes from a software background, however, and has successfully built and sold three companies prior to Colossal. He brings to the world of science the energy and unique thinking of a software entrepreneur at a time when AI and computational biology are really propelling the field forward in leaps and bounds. Ben is prolific in the world of scientific innovation, sitting on the board of the Planetary Society, The Explorers Club, as well as owning the award-winning science publication Nautilus. Ben, thanks for coming on to talk with me today.
Ben (00:02:12) - Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Ben (00:02:14) - I'm super excited to be here.
Daniel (00:02:15) - So we've got so many unique topics to dive into, but I want to first ground myself in the problem you're solving and the overarching mission at Colossal, which is essentially addressing the threat that the world could lose up to 50% of its biodiversity by 2050. I think that's a really startling statistic that not many people would be aware of. And has the pace of extinction really accelerated? What do the trendlines look like today?
Ben (00:02:40) - It's actually terrifying. When we started the business, our original decks that we showed our investors and kind of early partners was that, and the research showed that we could lose up to 10% of biodiversity. And that was in, you know, 2021. So that's not a good trendline. Well, now you're looking at late last year, there's a study that came out that said somewhere between 35 and 50%. And so even just in a few short years since we started the company, we've seen this dramatic increase in the rate of extinctions across, you know, the animal kingdom, which is just crazy.
Ben (00:03:15) - That is.
Daniel (00:03:16) - Crazy. And that puts a real urgency around what you're doing, that it probably doesn't get a lot of airtime, but it would seem that a natural approach would be prevention and preventative measures that would bring the most impact. But you're approaching the angle from a de-extinction perspective. Why do it that way?
Ben (00:03:33) - We think that, like, modern conservation works, it just doesn't work at the same speed at which we are changing the environment, introducing invasive species, polluting the environment, and changing the entire atmosphere. The reality is that there's this massive causal effect that is compounded when you start to look at this on an ecosystem level and specifically with keystone species. And so we think that current conservation works. It's just we have to employ genetic rescue technologies, biobanking technologies, and all these other tools and technologies. And we look at ourselves at Colossal as while we're focused primarily on de-extinction, that's to make an end-to-end de-extinction toolkit that we can then go leverage for species preservation and all of the tools and technologies that we develop on the path to de-extinction are free for conservation.
Daniel (00:04:27) - Now, you talk about this notion of a keystone species or that species that has a really cornerstone impact in an ecosystem. Can you just share another example of what that looks like in an effort to rewild an ecosystem?
Ben (00:04:42) - So in the US one of the most famous examples was the Yellowstone wolves. So in 1925 there was this belief that was incorrect that says predators are bad. So we have to kill predators. If we just go kill predators, there'll be more animals, right? Because we're killing the predators. But that's actually not how it works. Predators play an important role in the ecosystem, and they are ecosystem modifiers as well. And what we found is they typically prey on the old and the sick. Right. And so they also help keep migratory patterns moving. There's a lot that animals like a keystone species, like a wolf do. So for 70 years Yellowstone didn't have wolves. Well, in 1995 they reintroduced 14 wolves just in less than a decade, those 14 wolves have completely reshaped, Yellowstone National Park.
Ben (00:05:29) - Rivers have actually been diverted and changed because when they reintroduced the wolves, the wolves actually got some of these sedentary species, like the elk and others in the bison that were just hanging out near the shoreline, grazing on the shoreline, eating all the shrubs and bushes and small trees that the beavers would use. And the beavers could make their dams and ecosystems, therefore, that they couldn't dam up the rivers. Therefore there couldn't be as deep rivers, therefore, that the temperature variance that you need for certain types of spawning fish to exist couldn't exist. Right. And so there's this incredible video online that shows how in under a decade, the reintroduction of wolves back into Yellowstone has not only helped reshape the rivers of Yellowstone, but it's helped bring complete new biodiversity back to Yellowstone that had been missing in the park for over 50 years.
Daniel (00:06:20) - Incredible. The real butterfly effects, and also such a speed of those effects, which is pretty remarkable.
Ben (00:06:26) - It's crazy.
Ben (00:06:27) - It's crazy. It's like nature really kind of knows what it's doing. And so the worst thing that we can do is interfere with it on a massive level, like removing a keystone species.
Daniel (00:06:36) - So what are the kind of species or what's the keystone species that Colossal is going to first produce? I'm guessing you've got quite an array to choose from.
Ben (00:06:44) - So we're working on a lot of species preservation works. We're working with, you know, African elephants in Botswana as well as Kenya. I'm looking at herd dynamics and migratory patterns and different elephant corridors and trying to understand kind of the population genomics of those herds, as well as looking at how do we rewild orphaned elephants back into herds in Botswana with one of Africa's largest elephant orphanages? So we're working on a bunch of those kind of keystone species projects for existing species. Obviously, we're working on the woolly mammoth, which we talk a lot about, which was a keystone species. Another keystone species that we're working on is the thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger.
Ben (00:07:24) - It was eradicated in 1936 because the government of Australia actually put a bounty on its head and went out and started killing Thylacines and paying people to kill Thylacines because there was a belief that they actually were killing sheep, which is not the case.
Daniel (00:07:40) - The Tasmanian tiger is coming back in. The woolly mammoth's coming back. Incredible work.
Ben (00:07:44) - Yeah, it's really cool.
Daniel (00:07:46) - I think you've set enough context for us, and now I'm excited to dive in as there's so much at work here under the hood, and I think it goes underserved by the headlines that Colossal attracts. And you're the first to apply a gene editing tool like Crispr for the purpose of de-extinction. And in my mind, that kind of gives your company a kind of innovative freedom that maybe other biotech organizations would love to have. So can you share some of the cutting-edge applications of Crispr that's happening at Colossal? And where do you see this advancing?
Ben (00:08:19) - Yeah, well, Crispr has kind of become the general catchall for gene editing, right? I think of like sending in a map and having a lot of different targets and edits and all of those being done at the exact same time.
Ben (00:08:31) - And so for us, it's really the combination of tools and technologies. And if you look at the application to de-extinction that allows us to make the number of gene edits, we have different tools for each one of the different kind of like edits that we're trying to make. Maybe this is just a single nucleotide edit, maybe this is a whole big swap, or I'm gonna swap that out. But a lot of that has applications even to human health care long term. Right. And so if you look at certain disease states like sickle cell anemia, that's a single gene mutation. Well, existing technologies can eradicate that. But, you know, if you start to look at more and more advanced disease states that have their multigenic in nature, meaning that multiple multiple genes at the same time are affecting, you know, that disease state. Well, then you have to have more advanced technologies from a Colossal perspective that while we work for de-extinction and species preservation, we actually are also building tools and technologies which can advance the entire world of biotechnology and synthetic biology.
Ben (00:09:30) - Because we're working in, we had to build the entire system, right? We didn't. We're not just working on like the computational models or not just working on the cellular engineering. We're not just working on embryology or the genetic engineering. We've actually had to build the entire system to accommodate everything, and really.
Daniel (00:09:47) - Just advancing the whole science forward in a massive way. So what has it taught you about our own ability to improve a human's healthy lifespan?
Ben (00:09:56) - Yeah, I think that we are learning more from a computational and analysis every day about like what makes these different disease states tick. Right. And you know, we while Colossal, is not focused on human health care, we're focused exclusively on animals. I do think that some of the technologies, like Form Bio that we spun out and others will have an application to human health care. One big project that we just announced our success on recently was induced pluripotent stem cells. So we were in elephants, so we were able to reprogram elephant cells back into their most naive states so that anyone can make any different type of tissue from that.
Ben (00:10:33) - Right? Which is really, really important for our de-extinction efforts. But what's really interesting is that elephants have more copies of p53, which is a protein which effectively has cancer fighting application. So if you look at an elephant, those edits could look like a mutation. They could look like cancer. Right. And so elephant cells terminate those cells so that the mutation or, you know, cancer would not spread. So we've actually had to get really good at controlling and regulating p53 and turning it up and turning it down so that we can make the edits, but then also want to make sure that we're not causing an issue long term in the elephant cells. We still want them to have those cancer fighting abilities. So there's all kinds of these like potential nuances that are coming off of our research that we think will be massively, massively impactful.
Daniel (00:11:26) - It sounds incredible and sounds like learning so much through the animal studies as well. that could be applied.
Ben (00:11:32) - We're just working in non model organisms. Right. Like there's not enough people that work in elephant cells right.
Ben (00:11:37) - Like most of the big biotechs work in like pig and mouse models. Right. So they can go quickly into human clinical trials, which is fantastic. But there are, you know, benefits to understanding more about these non model organisms that just aren't being studied really, at least not to this level.
Daniel (00:11:53) - And what's the next big unlock for scientists using gene editing tools. That's on the horizon.
Ben (00:11:59) - Where I see synthetic biology going is I see a world where we understand enough about genotype to phenotype relationships from a computational analysis perspective, that we can start to engineer life, right? Like we can start to shape life in a way that helps, right? Right. Like for example, we just launched a company called Breaking Out of Colossal. And Breaking is a naturally occurring microbe that every type of plastic that some takes 10,000 years, some takes indefinite amount of time, and it breaks it down. And, you know, under two years. Well, with synthetic biology and genetic engineering, we can supercharge that microbe and it can eat at a much faster rate.
Ben (00:12:40) - Right. So we're taking things that take 10,000 years to 8 to 22 months now. Well, we could even condense it maybe down into days and weeks. Right. And so that has huge applications for the plastic pollution crisis that we think is also another existential threat. Right. And so the ability for us to engineer through a combination of, you know, genetic engineering tools, compute and AI to be able to engineer life is something that we find really, really fascinating. And to be able to truly direct that in a way that that can help humanity, the planet and animals is, you know, part of the reason why we started Colossal to begin with.
Daniel (00:13:19) - That's such a fascinating use case. And, you know, if you're almost making this microbe much hungrier to consume at a faster rate, how do you then model out before you embark on that of what could be the types of scenarios or flow-on effects of that? It seems like there would need to be a huge amount of compute and design work to do these simulations around what are the effects of putting that in there.
Daniel (00:13:42) - Can you just share a little bit about how you do that.
Ben (00:13:45) - So it's a great point. So all of that has to be modeled out well on the computational side. Like I really think that we are moving from an age of scientific discovery to an age of scientific engineering when it comes to biology. Right? I think we will always be learning and discovering new things, but we are really going to be moving more, less from experimentation and more towards engineering, where we have the power to do directed evolution, the power to do enhancements and increase resilience. And a lot of that starts, you know, in silicon understands and you have to do all of the right modeling, using all of the right latest software tools and proprietary algorithms for your particular endeavor. But with that, I do believe we will then be able to, you know, create these individual use case organisms or multicellular in the case of de-extinction that serve a purpose. Right? And, you know, you've got to also ensure that you, all of this has to go through regulatory and through a very stage-gated process, not just from a regulation perspective, but also from an impact to the environment impact to, human health impact to all these different categories.
Ben (00:14:50) - So, so it is an area that, you know, I think requires additional layers of scrutiny and work, but I think that the benefits from it humankind has. Upon or invented, and has the same level of impact that synthetic biology does.
Daniel (00:15:06) - You're a software engineer and entrepreneur by background, so let's spend a little bit more time in this in silico piece. Because when I think about the advancements in biotech, there's the lab work and the wet lab kind of component, but it really feels like there's such a massive unlock going on in what we can do in software with the data and with all of these machine learning models that are out there. So what is the kind of like cutting edge that you're seeing at that front end? Like, what does it look like in a couple of years out on that trajectory curve?
Ben (00:15:35) - I think a big area that we will see that has both an application to our work, and we'll also have an application to biotech and human health care is the reality that over time, we will even be good at designing and simulating outcomes.
Ben (00:15:53) - Right. So I think and then I think that, you know, right around the corner or so I've been told for quite some time, it's quantum. And I think that the combination of compute quantum and AI, it's kind of the intersection of synthetic biology is really interesting because I think that we are as we get better at the simulation side, we can simulate what the impacts of edits are. We can simulate, you know, what the application, the downstream effects are of making certain edits or changes. We actually use AI, and we built an entire tool that we run our guides and edits through and actually recommends what different genetic engineering tool that we have at our disposal in order to do it. Right. So we're even getting, you know, genetic engineering recommendations from the software now, right? Which is pretty novel and interesting.
Daniel (00:16:39) - Yeah. And that's that's one of the big promises that we keep hearing about is AI's application into biotech to reduce the time for drug discovery. But you're also talking about or hitting on a notion of the actual design or coming up with what is to be designed by the software and the AI.
Daniel (00:16:55) - So we're going to see far more of that of computer-led design, rather than research or human-led design of these types of projects and initiatives.
Ben (00:17:03) - 100%. And I think it'll be really a teaming thing. Right? It's like teaming those systems together.
Daniel (00:17:08) - And have you been playing around with Google's AlphaFold three? And sort of there's quite a bit of promise in that recent release and how it sort of handles complexity.
Ben (00:17:16) - Yeah. So our team leverages a lot of those tools, the latest and greatest tools to model out proteins and folding structures and whatnot. So I do believe that computing AI has shortened our timeline from decades to the timelines that we're now on, which is just amazing.
Daniel (00:17:33) - How are you looking at designing the company that is Colossal with all of these kind of tailwinds of innovation, did you have to design it very differently to a traditional biotech organization?
Ben (00:17:45) - I think the benefit is that I don't come from biotech. Right. And I knew that academic labs were interesting, but, you know, they kind of went on for a long time.
Ben (00:17:53) - They were very focused on papers and point solutions versus like a systems approach. So I, you know, my background is building software systems, some space hardware, but fundamentally products. Right. And so in, you know, elephant iPSCs. But it's actually been in reprogramming scientists to actually work in Jira and all these other systems as well.
Daniel (00:18:12) - Amazing. And, and the cool part of it is this spinouts that you're starting to do. And it really feels like that is like the next generation of organization where you have an organization, like doing deep R&D work and generating the IP. That is, for example, in this case Colossal. And then you have these spin outs that are kind of more vertically focused or sort of commercially focused organizations. You mentioned Breaking being one of them. The other one was Form Bio that you mentioned, can you just give us an understanding of what Form Bio does and how that structure stuff?
Ben (00:18:45) - We need a platform or a series of platforms to help us really do a lot of the computational analysis that we are working on.
Ben (00:18:51) - Right. And so we needed everything from assembling ancient DNA to doing comparative genomics to that of the closest living relative. We needed to be able to put and do Crispr and other guide designs in the software. We need a system that could help us relevance, rank, that we could train the system back like, oh, this type of editing modality created these, this number of off target effects. And so we needed a system that we could also input all this data in, do comparative genomics in and also train so that we get better and better and better and better. Right. Some of the stem cell reprogramming work, as well as the genome engineering work, will probably lead to some of the next few companies. They will most likely be human health care related and focused is my guess. So Ben.
Daniel (00:19:35) - What are the other areas of spinouts that you're exploring? Are you looking at, for example, reproduction, whether it's humans or animals and looking at how ex utero kind of innovation could be applied into those fields?
Ben (00:19:47) - Colossal.
Ben (00:19:48) - We could ask a lot, you know, we'll Colossal make artificial wombs for humans. And my response to that is we don't work on humans, we work on animals and conservation. I do think that if we if we are successful. With artificial wombs that would have a bigger impact on conservation than anything. Because if we could grow 100 northern white rhinos in a laboratory, in a safe environment without affecting another animal, and then rewild those animals back with, you know, top conservation and ecology experts, that would change conservation forever, right? I will say that, you know, I do think there's the animals that we intend to grow through. Our utero development systems are much harder than humans, but separately, you've got ethics and regulation and many other things. I do believe that, you know, a couple hundred years from now, people will see that it was archaic that humans grew humans and humans. But we as Colossal won't be the one that does that. I think that maybe we will contribute to an external company, and some of those technologies could be applied for that.
Ben (00:20:50) - But ultimately, you know, even just some of the parts before you even get to utero, develop full, full term zero development. I think it'd be really interesting because, like, you know, one of the things that we focus on, especially with these embryos of these species that have lots of edits in them that are very expensive, you know, in terms of like the efforts that we put into them, we actually use a combination of hydrogels and microfluidic devices and AI and cameras to manipulate the, the media and whatnot. And we've shown that we've been able to make much healthier embryos. And I think that's a function of the fact of the tools and technology that we developed. Well, that same technology, even way before you get to artificial wombs, could be helpful for, you know, human health care and IVF clinics.
Daniel (00:21:35) - I bet, I bet, and it sounds like the technology will almost get there before the actual moral questions and regulatory questions around that, given the trajectory.
Ben (00:21:44) - Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Ben (00:21:46) - So I think that I think you're spot on.
Daniel (00:21:49) - What about the impact? And you know, I know Colossal won't be working on this, but you have a very good lens from your perspective as an entrepreneur in the space around longevity, what are your own thoughts and sort of, you know, beliefs around where this could go? I mean.
Ben (00:22:02) - So we are not working on it. I know a lot of George Church is working on it. David Sinclair is working on it, upgrades working on it. You've got incredible folks like Bob Nelson that are funding a lot of these. You've got, calico, you've got altos, you've got a lot of people looking at a lot of these different technologies. You know, I think that aging I do subscribe that aging is a disease state. You know, there's like 9 or 10 markers of it. You know, we know what fundamentally causes aging and cellular health. We've been able to extend life without some of these advancements. I do think that as the NIH and others really start looking at aging as a disease state, it'll get the right amount of support and funding.
Ben (00:22:44) - And I also think that, you know, there's been new tools and technologies that have come out in the last, you know, five years that have completely changed the game, like all of these, GPL one and GPL two inhibitors. While I think they have had this massive effect on, you know, loss of body mass in the populace as well as loss of fat and, and lowered cholesterol and benefits to agency. I think that you also have, novelness in the delivery mechanisms. Right. Whereas I think there's a lot of drugs and therapies that people are like, oh, they'll net people will never keep them cold. They have to take them as a pill. They can't take them as a shot unless it's insulin in their life. Depends on it daily. They're not going to take a shot. Right. Well now you've got these quick puncture. You know, one one use delivery systems which the novelness of new delivery mechanisms for drugs and that we've seen through the rise of Monjourno and Ozempic and others that that people will take a shot at home.
Ben (00:23:44) - And you layer that with computational analysis and drug discovery and how AI is advancing that field and new paradigms of how the human race is willing to take and administer their own drugs. I think that that's a game changer for medicine, and I think that so in a weird way, I think that some of these GPL ones, their delivery mechanism, while not surprisingly, novel, the fact that we've shown that the world has shown that they will take, you know, self-administered, you know, delivery through shots at home other than like extreme cases, like, you know, insulin. I think that's a very big step for health care, right? Because there are certain drugs that you have to be able you have to be able to deliver in those methods. Right. And so I think over the next ten years, there's going to be a lot of technologies that that come out. And I think that I think in the next ten years, you know, everyone will be on some form of mitochondrial health support system, A1C lowering cholesterol, you know, like I, you know, I take Repatha, which I think is a miracle drug.
Ben (00:24:47) - It lowers your cholesterol by I'm not an Amgen shareholder. So I can say this, you know, lowers your LDL by 60 to 70%. These are the types of things that, you know, like we can solve. So before we even get into it, you know, telomere extension light. And in some of these more cellular regeneration and some of these other things, things like diabetes, heart attacks and cardiovascular events and strokes are 100% preventable. Now, they are 100% preventable. We know enough about it. They're 100% preventable. So it's really just you've got cancer, which is like 200 different diseases and dementia and Alzheimer's, and then you've got cellular aging and health. So you kind of have like three big buckets. And then over time, all these drugs just get better and better. Like some of the latest studies that are coming out around the GPL ones are insane. And so I think that that you have a world where all these things are going to come together and healthspan is going to dramatically increase, and I think lifespan does along with it.
Daniel (00:25:46) - It's such an incredible future that's being ushered in so quickly. So what concerns you about the future that you're helping to develop?
Ben (00:25:54) - Yeah, I mean, look, the thing about any of these gene editing tools is, you know, you've got you also have the biohacking generation, right? We've looked at sequencing go down from billions, tens of billions of billions down to $100. You're going to have the same with DNA synthesis. Eventually, we're going to be able to print full genomes, and that price is going to come from an insane price down to, you know, very, very cheap. And I think that coupled with new delivery mechanisms, more advances in computational, and computational abilities, the, you know, the quantum revolution, you know, I think the things that scare me is that, you know, the, some of these tools and technologies are very cost effective. And while there's lots of regulation, there needs to be more. And I think the I think that over time everything becomes a GMO on some level.
Ben (00:26:46) - And so we just have to figure out how that is regulated and monitored, not just from the United States, but also from a global stage with other nation states that may not share the same values as the United States. I think that synthetic biology is an area where there needs to be a, a very high degree of focus, and.
Daniel (00:27:08) - Regulation is obviously one way to do it. Are there other ways that we could sort of safeguard against that future?
Ben (00:27:14) - Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I'm an eternal optimist, right? So I believe fundamentally people are going to use technologies and these tools, for the betterment, I love humanity. I think that the vast majority of humans love humanity and want a better world for themselves and their kids and their kids' kids. Right. and so, you know, I think that that, you know, outside of regulation, I think education, right, like teaching people about this, like, people always ask us the Jurassic Park question, believe it or not.
Ben (00:27:44) - And, you know, one of the things I always say to them is like one of the great things that even though it was a dystopian movie that wasn't real, one of the great things that came out of it is it taught people that there was this thing called DNA, and we have this ability to manipulate those strands of DNA, and who knows what's possible from that, right? And so I think educating and inspiring the next generation of, of little girl or little boy scientists is just as important as putting regulations around these different technologies.
Daniel (00:28:15) - Yeah, really well said. And you know, we're coming up on time. But I think that's a nice way to kind of wrap up is that you're doing such a bold mission with Colossal, and it really inspires this kind of new generation of people into that. But how do you advise someone who wants to take on something so bold and so different to get started and to cross that 0 to 1?
Ben (00:28:38) - I think post-Covid a lot of people like said, do we just want to sit in our houses and watch Netflix or do we want something more out of life? Right.
Ben (00:28:45) - So I am a big moonshot thinking guy. I think you've got incredible people like Peter Diamandis and Bob Nelson and Thomas Tal and others that, you know, want to push society and humanity forward. And I think, I think that those pockets of humanity exist. Right. And I think you just have to go find them and then find the solutions for it. I think over the next ten years, we will watch a tectonic shift of people interested in investing in incremental changes like the next slack versus someone that wants to invent, you know, the next, you know, cure for XYZ state or next, you know, Interplanetary Robotics Company. And so I think that we are living in a transitional time of humanity where people want bigger, more important moonshots and they want to push the human race forward on a step function level. I hope Colossal, I hope we're successful. You know, we have not been successful yet, but early indicators look positive. And if we are successful in our journey, well, then, you know, hopefully we are one of the contributing factors to that global consciousness.
Daniel (00:29:51) - I think you're being modest there and there's been a lot of success had to date. And you can see it continue to grow its impact. But thank you so much.
Ben (00:29:59) - Thanks for having me. I'm always happy to chat.
Daniel (00:30:01) - Wow, what a fun and mind-blowing look at the future of biology and genetics. You can feel the intensity of the research and pace of innovation really picking up across the industry. And moonshot companies like Colossal have really moved the goalposts out on what's possible. What stood out to me was how advances in computation allow for highly complex lab work to biological reactions to now be done in software, collapsing the time to discovery and opening up the aperture for innovation. Hearing of AI's increasing role in the discovery and design phase, previously the realm of human researchers, is a huge unlock and advancement to watch that I think will have a material impact on everything from our health to the food that we eat. While it's clear that the arrival of the woolly mammoth will be just one of the biggest headline grabbers in a few years, it will be the breakthroughs in our ability to understand and manipulate life on our planet that will have the largest lasting impact on the world to come.
Daniel (00:30:56) - To stay across these amazing advancements, you can find Ben on Twitter at @BenLamm, and I encourage you to check out his scientific publication, Nautilus, by heading over to their website. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and please subscribe to the podcast to listen to more coming down the pike. Until next time, thanks for listening. Have a great rest of your day.
