Company hatches first chicks from artificial egg, advancing avian embryo development, de-extinction

"Colossal Biosciences, the world's first de-extinction company, today announced that it has hatched live chicks from its fully artificial egg - a first-of-its-kind incubation platform that supports complete avian embryo development outside a biological eggshell, from early embryo to hatch, without supplemental oxygen."

"Shell-less avian culture was first attempted in the 1980s, but prior systems required large volumes of pure oxygen, which causes DNA damage and impact long-term animal health and is an approach that is incompatible with standard commercial incubators while being impossible to scale for conservation or industrial applications."

"Colossal's team solved this by designing and engineering a lattice shell architecture that incorporates a novel bioengineered silicone-based membrane that matches the oxygen transfer capacity of a natural eggshell under normal atmospheric conditions created by Colossal's material science team. The result is a device compatible with standard commercial incubators, manufacturable at scale, and adaptable to eggs of any size."

""Every new scalable system for de-extinction is ultimately a biology problem wrapped in an engineering problem. The artificial egg is a perfect example," said Ben Lamm, CEO and co-founder at Colossal Biosciences. "Restoring species like the South Island Giant Moa isn't just about reconstructing ancient genomes and editing PGCs - it requires building an entirely new incubation system where no surrogate exists and scales in ways that ordinary biology simply doesn't.""

Colossal Biosciences hatched live chicks from a fully artificial egg that enables complete avian embryo development outside a biological eggshell, from early embryo to hatch, without supplemental oxygen. The incubation platform supports the South Island Giant Moa de-extinction program and is positioned as an enabling technology for scalable avian biotechnology and conservation. Earlier shell-less avian culture attempts in the 1980s required large volumes of pure oxygen, which can cause DNA damage and harm long-term animal health, and was incompatible with standard commercial incubators. Colossal engineered a lattice shell architecture with a bioengineered silicone-based membrane that matches oxygen transfer capacity of a natural eggshell under normal atmospheric conditions. The device is compatible with commercial incubators, manufacturable at scale, and adaptable to eggs of any size.

Read at ABC7 San Francisco