section_path: Conservation
section_name: Conservation
paragraph_text: Conservation
  
  In October 2022, Colossal announced that it was developing a vaccine for elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV), in partnership with the Baylor College of Medicine.
  
  In May 2023, Colossal partnered with the Vertebrate Genomes Project to successfully generate the first high-quality reference genome of an African elephant. This sequencing work is part of a long-term conservation effort for the endangered elephant species.
  
  In September 2023, Colossal partnered with BioRescue to help save the northern white rhino from extinction by using reproduction technology and stem cell technology, as the subspecies is functionally extinct with only two known infertile female members left.
  
  Colossal and Zoos Victoria began a conservation project in October 2023 to preserve the Victorian Grassland Earless Dragon as well as sequence its genome.
  
  In November 2023, Colossal announced a research partnership with Save the Elephants to track African elephants in the Samburu National Reserve. Save the Elephants has already tracked over 900 elephants in the area, using drones equipped with high-resolution infrared cameras. Colossal plans to use pose estimation to develop algorithms for labeling elephants and automatically identifying individual and collective social behavior.
  
  Colossal also began a partnership with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation in November 2023. The company stated that they would work in collaboration with the Foundation to restore "critical ecosystems through invasive species removal, revegetation, and community awareness efforts." Additionally, Colossal also planned focus on the rewilding of the dodo bird as well as the genetic rescue of the pink pigeon.
  
  In March 2024, Colossal and Re:wild partnered together to establish a "10-year conservation strategy" to accelerate efforts to "save species on the brink of extinction, search for lost species, and restore key habitats for species recovery and rewilding."
  
  In May 2024, Colossal and the University of Melbourne announced the successful engineering of cane toad toxin resistance in marsupial cells, as part of conservation efforts for the northern quoll.
  
  The first-ever mRNA vaccine for elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV), developed by Colossal, the Houston Zoo, and the Baylor College of Medicine, was administered to an elephant in July 2024.
  
  In October 2024, Colossal announced its launch of the Colossal Foundation, a non-profit initiative that utilizes Colossal-developed science and technology methods for partner-led conservative efforts. Included in its conservation agenda is the Colossal Biovault, "the world's largest distributed biobanking initiative." The Colossal Biovault collects tissue samples of endangered species in hopes to allow cell lines to become accessible and stored in domestic partner facilities. Its first projects included the Sumatran rhinoceros, the red wolf, the northern quoll, the northern white rhinoceros, the pink pigeon, the tooth-billed pigeon, the Victorian grassland earless dragon, the vaquita, the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, the Asian elephant, and the ivory-billed woodpecker. In addition to these species, Colossal planned to biobank the "top 100 most imperilled" species on their Colossal 100 list. However, this list has not been publicly disclosed.
  
  In December 2024, Colossal and University of Melbourne began research into engineering an immunity to chytridiomycosis, a lethal fungal-based disease in amphibians that is responsible for many extinctions and declines in amphibians, including the golden toad and Rabbs' fringe-limbed tree frog.
  
  In April 2025, Colossal announced the facilitated birth of two cloned red wolf litters from three different genetic founder lines. The litters included three male red wolf pups (Blaze, Cinder, and Ash) as well as one adolescent female red wolf (Hope). However, Joseph Hinton from the Wolf Conservation Center in New York disagreed with this claim, stating that they are merely "derived from coyotes captured in southwest Louisiana for the Gulf Coast Canid Project". In the same month, Colossal in collaboration with IPB University announced that they would use assisted reproduction technology and similar methods used in the company's dire wolf project to help save the Sumatran rhinoceros from extinction.