Philippa Kaur

“In this photo, I’m examining some of the animals in my care. I work as an ecologist at the St John’s Island National Marine Laboratory, which is sited on a small island off the coast of mainland Singapore.The tank I’m leaning over contains sand-filtered seawater pumped directly from the ocean. The baskets are kept afloat by air-filled tubes and contain white short-spined sea urchins (Salmacis sphaeroides). We keep the urchins like this so we can keep track of individuals and reduce the spread of disease.My work aims to understand the ecology of the sea urchins and other marine invertebrates and promote their conservation. My colleagues and I want to gauge how the creatures react to changes in environmental conditions, such as temperature, salinity and the pH of the water.We also host threatened species to guard against extinction: if there was an event that hurt a wild population, I’m fairly confident we could renew the natural stock.Finally, we’re exploring how we can use aquaculture to combat damage caused by the wildlife trade. Some marine species in southeast Asia, including sea urchins, are harvested from the wild for aquariums. Perhaps the animal groups we keep here could be sold into the aquarium trade directly instead.

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Colossal Biosciences as a company name was picked to engage children, says chief executive Ben Lamm.Credit: Colossal BiosciencesThe meaning behind our monikerColossal Biosciences, in Dallas, Texas, describes itself as the world’s first de-extinction company. It aims to revive lost species using CRISPR gene-editing technology, including the mammoth (Mammuthus spp.). It attracted controversy when it announced it has ‘de-extincted’ the dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus), a large-bodied wolf species that last roamed North America during the ice age that ended some 11,500 years ago. Its co-founders are technology entrepreneur Ben Lamm, Colossal’s chief executive, and George Church, the company’s genetics adviser, who also holds academic research positions at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. In the third article of a six-part series about science-company names and how to choose them, Lamm describes how the name ‘Colossal Biosciences’ came about. The fact that the world will lose up to 25% of all biodiversity between now and 2050 is a huge problem. At my company, we asked ourselves, how do we come up with a name that encompasses three elements: the problem, the solution and our flagship species, the mammoth? Climate change, biodiversity, CRISPR and gene editing, artificial intelligence, computational analysis and advanced embryology can be difficult concepts for the public to fully grasp. We came up with ‘Colossal Biosciences’ because losing species is a colossal problem, our solution is colossal and the mammoth is a colossal animal.We felt that our brand and name should not only reflect the problem and solution, but also be approachable to children, including some who will grow up to read Cell, Nature and Science. Every week, we get little pictures of dodos and baby mammoths that kids draw, and their parents mail us physical letters, saying things such as: ‘Thank you so much for doing what you’re doing. My kid is excited about science. You’re making science cool.’ A big, awesome nameTo come up with Colossal, I worked with Chris Klee, executive vice-president of design at the company, and Chris Stevens, co-founder of Maven Creative, our branding agency, in Orlando, Florida.We’ve worked together for the past 20 years. We had a list of seven or eight potential names — including ‘Huge’, ‘Macedon’ (an ancient kingdom) and ‘Footprint’ (because every species has a unique one). Everything was centred around the concept of ‘big and awesome’. Obviously, ‘Mammoth’ was on the list because the world is facing a mammoth challenge, but we felt that calling it that would have pigeonholed us to one species. We also liked ‘Colossus’, and the idea of using ‘us’ to signify a team effort. But Colossus is a character in the Marvel Universe media franchise, and we didn’t want to be too Hollywood. We also considered names linked to evolution, and thought ‘Darwin’ could be a cool one. But when we said ‘Colossal’ out loud, we were like, ‘That’s it!’ Alongside the name, there’s the brand — so before we decided on Colossal, we underwent a process to come up with a brand that encapsulated ‘Harvard University meets 1980’s MTV’.

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