Colossal Biosciences is growing chickens in a 3D-printed artificial eggshell

Artificial eggshell, not artificial egg: Colossal Biosciences has grown baby chicks inside 3D-printed plastic containers coated with a silicone-based membrane that mimics an eggshell's oxygen exchange — a meaningful step, but scientists say the company is overselling it. The moa is one target: Colossal's goal is resurrecting the giant moa, a 12-foot flightless bird hunted to extinction — which would require genetically rewriting thousands of DNA letters and scaling up the artificial eggs to the

" data-chronoton-post-id="1137471" data-chronoton-expand-collapse="1" data-chronoton-analytics-enabled="1"> The baby chicks were shifting and starting to pip—or trying to hatch. Instead, these chickens were growing inside transparent 3D-printed plastic cups at the Dallas headquarters of Colossal Biosciences. The biotech company today claimed it has developed a “fully artificial egg” as part of its effort to resurrect extinct avian species, including birds like the dodo and the giant moa. But “artificial eggshell” would probably be a better description for the invention. It’s an oval-shaped printed lattice, coated inside with a special silicone-based membrane that lets in oxygen, just as a real eggshell does. To generate birds, Colossal took recently laid chicken eggs and carefully poured their contents into the artificial shells, where they continued growing. A window on top lets researchers peek inside. “To see them all moving around in their artificial eggs was absolutely mind blowing,” says Andrew Pask, the company’s chief biology officer. “You really feel you can grow life outside of the womb.” Colossal was founded in 2021 with plans to use gene editing and reproductive technology to restore extinct species, including the woolly mammoth. It’s since raised more than $800 million toward what it now terms the “scalable and controllable” creation of animals. According to Pask, the egg technology could help conserve at-risk bird species. It could also play a role in a project to re-create the extinct giant moa, a flightless 12-foot-tall bird that once lived in New Zealand and laid four-liter eggs, larger than those of any living bird.

Key points

• " data-chronoton-post-id="1137471" data-chronoton-expand-collapse="1" data-chronoton-analytics-enabled="1"> The baby chicks were shifting and starting to pip—or trying to hatch.
• Instead, these chickens were growing inside transparent 3D-printed plastic cups at the Dallas headquarters of Colossal Biosciences.
• The biotech company today claimed it has developed a “fully artificial egg” as part of its effort to resurrect extinct avian species, including birds like the dodo and the giant moa.
• But “artificial eggshell” would probably be a better description for the invention.
• It’s an oval-shaped printed lattice, coated inside with a special silicone-based membrane that lets in oxygen, just as a real eggshell does.