Saturday, September 27, 2025

Special Edition: De-Extinction? Dire Wolves, Dodos & What’s Next

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Dire wolves are back — and dodos may be next.

Colossal Biosciences is using cutting-edge genetics to revive extinct animals, from Ice Age predators to ancient birds. But this isn’t just about bringing back the past. The same technologies could transform conservation, agriculture, and even human medicine.

Colossal’s Chief Science Officer Beth Shapiro joins us to break down the science, respond to skeptics, and explain what their efforts could mean for the future.

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Guest: Beth Shapiro

Beth Shapiro is the Chief Science Officer at Colossal Biosciences. She’s an evolutionary biologist who specializes in the genetics of ice age animals and plants. As Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz and HHMI Investigator, Beth uses DNA recovered from bones and other remains to study how species evolved through time and how human activities have affected and continue to affect this dynamic process. Her work focuses on organisms ranging from influenza to mammoths, asking questions about domestication, admixture, speciation, and pathogen evolution.

Her current work develops techniques to recover increasingly trace amounts of DNA such as from environmental and forensic samples. A 2009 MacArthur Fellow, Beth is also an award-winning popular science author and communicator who uses her research as a platform to explore the potential of genomic technologies for conservation and medicine.

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