CIA, Paris Hilton, Peter Thiel Invest In Wooly Mammoth Resurrection
Dallas-based biotech company Colossal Biosciences says it is “combining the science of genetics [as they] endeavor to jumpstart nature’s ancestral heartbeat.” In other words, they want to resurrect the extinct wooly mammoth.
The company has attracted some celeb investors, including Peter Thiel, Tony Robbins, Paris Hilton and, most recently and least sexy, the CIA. Investigative journalists at The Intercept noticed the connection in a public portfolio released this month.
The new investor is called In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit venture capital firm founded in 1999 and funded by the CIA. The company’s stated mission is to “power our partners ahead of the technology curve to ensure the national security of the US and its allies.”
The Intercept did not get an answer out of In-Q-Tel when they asked them what reviving animals 4000 years extinct would do for national security, but some hints can be gleaned from the nonprofit’s website. “Strategically, it’s less about the mammoths and more about the capability,” reads a recent blog.
The intelligence agency wants to be capable in “synbio,” or synthetic biology, which uses artificial intelligence, machine learning, and lab automation “to accelerate the engineering cycle of design-build-test-learn to make increasingly sophisticated and useful biotechnology products.”
While there is certainly potential for spectacular products, it is hard to shake the notion that the agency that once tried to kill Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar might not be a completely trustworthy stakeholder. Since the CIA is hardly transparent, taxpayers may never know exactly what they’re funding. “How we employ the potentially staggering power of biotechnology to shape the planet and humanity itself will matter as much as our ability to do so,” says In-Q-Tel, leaving a little too much for the imagination.
Colossal Biosciences also plans to resurrect the thylacine, an extinct carnivorous marsupial otherwise known as the Tasmanian tiger.
Photo credit: In-Q-Tel
