Robin's Nest from American Humane - “Engineering the Future of Life” with Dr. George Church

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

In this special episode of Robin’s Nest, we’re joined by Dr. George Church, a world-renowned geneticist and one of the leading minds behind the Human Genome Project, for a conversation about the amazing ways science is helping us understand, protect and even restore life on Earth.Dr. Church takes us inside the frontier of synthetic biology, from the origins of CRISPR and gene editing to the bold promise of de-extinction, conservation technology and genetic equity. The discussion spans his groundbreaking work with Colossal Biosciences, where efforts to revive the woolly mammoth and other lost species aim to restore ecosystems and rethink what “saving nature” means in the 21st century.Listeners will hear Dr. Church reflect on the ethics and responsibilities of rewriting life’s code, the potential for genetic engineering to combat biodiversity loss, and why he believes “extinction doesn’t have to be forever.” This episode explores how technology and conservation can work hand-in-hand to heal the planet.A fascinating journey into the science shaping our shared future, and a reminder that innovation, guided by compassion and curiosity, may yet help us write a better story for life on Earth.

Hello, friends, and welcome to a very special episode of Robin's Nest, where we celebrate the heart of humanity and the power of compassion in action. I'm Dr. Robin Gansard, and today we're doing something a little different and incredibly exciting. In this episode, we're bringing you a fascinating conversation with one of the world's leading scientific visionaries, Dr. George Church, a pioneer in genetics, biotechnology, and conservation innovation. Dr. Church's work explores how science can not only protect endangered species, but may one day help restore those we've all lost, all while raising profound questions about ethics, ecology, and the future of our planet. I won't be conducting today's interview myself, but our team had the extraordinary opportunity to sit down with Dr. Church for an in-depth discussion about how breakthroughs in science and compassion can work together to safeguard life on Earth. So sit back, open your mind, and prepare to be inspired by the future of conservation. Right here on Robin's Nest. Welcome to Robin's Nest.

Many of us feel a deep bond with animals, from the pets we cherish at home to the endangered species in nature. Join us for lively informative conversations where together we will build a more humane world. I'm George Church Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and I work on various technologies for medicine and for conservation. We are interested in virus resistance for plants, animals, and people. We've demonstrated complete virus resistance in the bacterium. We have some new vaccines for wild animals, and we participate in vaccines for humans that involve either infectious diseases or cancers.

My passions for things related to animal health started, I grew up in Florida, surrounded by diverse animal species, snakes and wildcats and all sorts of interesting things on the mud flats that I lived on. And then I did my undergraduate degree in one of them in zoology, and that increased it some more.

had a long-term interest in large herbivores, especially ancient extinct ones. So these all came together in terms of conservation and increasing diversity from ancient DNA. I think people are very accepting of medically oriented genetic engineering, for example, bacteria that make insulin in vague fermenters. That's very distant relations.

They get more sensitive when it's about plants. and food that they're going to be giving to their kids. Makes perfect sense. And then they get open-minded again when it refers to improving the environment for animals, for climate change, and sort of like that. They're much more open-minded about that. So when I started thinking about bringing back

ancient DNA for, say, diversity of modern species, there were several criteria that I considered. Considered many different species. One was endangered species first, so something that could benefit endangered species, something that could benefit our habitats, our environment, something that could potentially, I mean, we don't have to promise these things, we just have to consider them as a reason for working climate change, and finally something that was charismatic and not some invasive species intrinsically.

And so the mammoth really had it all, and it still is, I think, way ahead of number two in my book. It is very charismatic. People love it. It is, you know, large enough that it can kind of take care of itself a bit. Social animals, so we have to be particularly concerned with its humane treatment. And it has this habitat that it used, its relatives used to have in the Arctic, where in the Arctic is a place where most of the world's carbon is sequestered, and it's very easy to sequester it because of the cold cycles. So anyway, it's an endangered species that needs new land to live in, and it needs help with viruses. It just was just, the whole package was very attractive, both as a challenge and as a potential benefit for humans.

So when we talk about some species that their only habitat is now completely urbanized. That's not the case for bully mammoths or a cold-tolerant version of the endangered elephants. It's an ideal environment in terms of minimal conflict with humans. Where elephants are right now, they're in conflict over ivory from their tusks and also for trampling farmland. But in the Arctic, the human population density is very close to zero. in wide stretches of the Arctic, which is about 19 million square kilometers. So it's a vast environment where they would not be near humans, much less in conflict with them.

When we think about climate change, it's important to think about how people influence it, and that's about 10 gigatons of carbon per year. And we could also think about habitats to sequester carbon, and of all the habitats in the world, the one that has the most sequestered carbon, sequestered carbon, as far as I know, is the Arctic. It has up to 500 meters of carbon rich soil, as opposed to one meter in rainforests. And that's because each year you build up a frozen layer. 1,400 gigatons in the Arctic, 10 gigatons per year that are human.

Obviously, you want to preserve the 1400 and sequester more, keep adding onto the place that already has a lot. Now, elephants' role in this is, it used to be a lot of. herbivores in the Arctic that would keep grasslands rich full of species. Herbivores were killed off including mammoths, probably humans contributed significantly to that. The Arctic became more trees. Trees allow the snow to stay fluffy and insulate the summer warmth away from the minus 40 degree wind and that's not good for preserving the sequestered carbon and if you could bring back those herbivores which would certainly happen if

it were grasslands and mammoths or sorry elephants or species in general are the only ones that only mammals that like to knock on trees they love knocking down trees both to get the vegetation at the top and also to just they like doing it so anyway that that's an argument for exploring this it's not necessarily guarantee or anything like that in fact there's very few solutions for the carbon in the air that are perfect by themselves so this is just one possible solution that we can explore we're also we're not trying to make a particular kind of you know particular DNA sequence we're trying to make something

that's well adapted and is and it's particularly happy with its environment whatever that is and so we can adjust it and particularly want to get remove temptation of poachers by, you know, manipulation of the tusks. And we'd also like to get them away from a level of herpes virus infection, which is almost extinction level all by itself, without help from humans. So we'd like to solve those two problems, which doesn't mean going back in time necessarily, but we also do want to go back in time for the cold resistance. It's a combination of modern, ancient, and new things.

And the theme of this is being a potential way that we want to accelerate it to keep pace with the accelerating climate change. And that would mean scaling up the reproduction of the elephants. We're probably going to be stuck with a 22-month gestation period, but we aren't stuck with the one elephant calf per gestation period and that we're not stuck with the current herd.

So we can probably scale that up with exodev or ectogenesis is sometimes called of birth outside of the body. That can be scaled up without interfering with the reproductive cycles of the endangered species. That's very important for us that we don't bother them to get eggs or to deliver experimental calves. All elephants are endangered species and any one of them. of them could be made more cold tolerant so they would have a home in the Arctic where they could reproduce but first we want to have lots of them partly because they're

endangered already and be nice to restore these will all be interbreedable with current endangered elephants would be increasing their diversity by reaching back in space and in time to find you know way for them to be happy but also have a large number of them at once and so that that would be the goal. We at Colossal have a relationship with the American Humane Society. This is very important to us and we're very grateful. Part of what we're trying to do is every time we take a step forward in terms of conservation, human goals like climate change, goals having to do with resuscitation,

rewilding and so forth, we'd like to have as many partners and insight into what we think could go wrong and how we mitigate that in advance before we get too far along in it. In the face of increasing biodiversity loss, there's still this hope in that I think we're getting more efficient at our utilization of land for providing food for humans. could easily compress farms like tenfold over some long period of time. We could, also I think we're getting much better at managing habitats, bringing back keystone species, rewilding them to enrich those habitats, the number of species that can maintain in the same space can go up. I think education, like this conversation we're having here, is great hope for the future.

So which career achievement I'm most proud of, I think it's the training of hundreds of students and postdocs, people that have come through the lab. I guess second to that would be our ability to read and write DNA and edit it efficiently, which is kind of a collection of things. Even in the face of all the exciting things that we do, there are surprises day to day that it. I don't need to keep me going. I'm highly motivated. But just when you see a patient has received a kidney that's been genetically engineered, you know, the first time in years having a vibrant and excitement about life. He's off kidney dialysis, Tim Andrews, for example. It's just so heartwarming and even double my already high motivation. Same thing goes. for animals when you see an endangered species suddenly get a boost in diversity or in

numbers it's it gives us hope for the future so if I if I had one thing to say to next generation of people leaning towards conservation it is in the face of AI and and all this biotechnology it is that it's your opportunity and maybe responsibility to harness these new tools like AI and biotechnology for good, whatever you consider, whatever your peers, consider what's good for humanity and for the other species. Really, thank you for having me and thank you for providing this for the world. What an incredible journey through the world of genetics and conservation with Dr. George Church.

A reminder that the future of our planet depends not just on technology, but on empathy and moral courage. Here at Robins Nest and through our work at American Humane Society, we believe that innovation and compassion must always walk hand in hand. Together they form the path to a kinder, more sustainable world for all living beings. If today's conversation moved you, please share this episode with someone who cares about animals, the planet, and the promise of a better tomorrow. And don't forget to subscribe to Robin's Nest wherever you listen to podcast, so you never miss a story of hope, heart, and humanity. I'm Dr. Robin Ganser. Thank you for joining me here in The Nest, where compassion takes flight.

Thank you.