Overview
- Dubai’s crown prince announced a partnership at the World Governments Summit to build the Colossal BioVault and World Preservation Lab inside the Museum of the Future.
- The first phase targets cryopreserving material from 100 highly at-risk species, with plans to scale to millions of samples representing more than 10,000 species as the first node of a planned global network.
- Colossal says the facility will use cryogenic preservation, robotics and AI, operate in public view so visitors can observe lab work, and share genomic data to support conservation and de‑extinction research.
- The initiative is described as a nine‑figure effort, and the UAE recently invested $60 million in Colossal’s funding round, bringing the company’s total capital raised to $615 million.
- Conservation experts welcome expanded biobanking but call for clear governance, long‑term funding, equitable access, and integration with on‑the‑ground conservation rather than treating cryobanking as a substitute.