The new announcement, however, has a clear conservation focus. Colossal has already announced what it’s calling a BioVault, a site where tissues and reproductive cells from at-risk species can be preserved, which requires a lot of power and a constant supply of liquid nitrogen. The new program will see it add samples from all of the US’s endangered species to that vault. Those samples will also be used to create whole genome sequences for each of these species. The announcement calls these “biological materials that enable assisted reproduction, population genetic management, and, where species are lost, the possibility of future restoration.”
The US Fish and Wildlife Service will provide the field collection and sampling expertise to populate this archive. They (and anyone else who initially obtains samples) will retain the ability to determine how any biological materials that result are used.
“All genomic data generated through this partnership will be deposited into open-access repositories, and provided at no cost, providing the global scientific and conservation community with the reference genomes, population-level sequence data, and bioinformatic tools needed to accelerate recovery efforts far beyond what any single agency or institution could accomplish alone,” the company’s announcement states. It clarified to Ars that there may be some limits on this. This is due in part to some samples originating from lands under tribal authority, and in part to specific population information that could put species at risk of poaching.
