‘De-extinction’ biotech firm has done what Game of Thrones fans only dreamt of: Dallas-based biotech firm Colossal Biosciences has successfully bio-engineered and birthed three genetically modified dire wolf pups — a species not seen on Earth in more than 12k years, Bloomberg reported earlier this month. The trio pups — two males, Remus and Romulus, and one female, Khalees – now roams a secretive preserve somewhere in the US.

Apparently it’s possible…with dog moms: The pups were born using gray wolf cells tweaked with 20 gene edits to mimic dire wolf traits, then implanted into hound dog surrogates. The company sourced ancient DNA from museum specimens, sequenced the genome, and essentially reverse-engineered the animal.

The ice age is pouring some hot money: The startup reported a valuation of about USD 10 bn after a funding round from TWG Global in January, and has raised USD 435 mn from names like Lord of the Rings’ filmmaker Peter Jackson and the CIA-backed non-profit IQT.

There’s more: The firm even more sci-fi targets on its list — think of extinct animals as the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger. It has also spun off two startups working on biodegradable plastics and computational biology.

But some criticism remains: Critics have called the animals genetically edited lookalikes, rather than true de-extinct species, but that hasn’t swayed off investors, including Paris Hilton and the Winklevoss twins, who are already seeing good returns from the company, Bloomberg said.

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