Colossal Biosciences, a company aiming to bring back extinct species, has pushed its timeline for de-extincting a woolly mammoth into the early 2030s. Ben Lamm, CEO and co-founder of Colossal, stated in a recent conversation with TIME that the company no longer has a firm date for the project, acknowledging that the original goals have shifted.
"We are thinking it will be in the early 2030s," Lamm told TIME. "We don’t have a hard date. Not 2036, but not 2030 either."
The company has made significant advancements in understanding both the mammoth and elephant genomes over the past year. These discoveries are not only improving the prospects for mammoth de-extinction but are also yielding fundamental genetic insights that could potentially benefit human health, including increasing resistance to cancer.
Colossal previously announced its success in de-extincting the dire wolf in the spring of 2025. This was achieved by editing the genome of the closely related gray wolf to incorporate the characteristics of its extinct relative. These traits included a white coat, larger size, more powerful shoulders, a wider head, larger teeth and jaws, more muscular legs, and distinctive vocalizations such as howling and whining.