Dallas – October 14, 2026 -- Colossal Biosciences has unveiled GenoMorph, an in-house AI platform that identified an estimated 2,300 candidate regulatory DNA elements linked to avian beak size and shape, giving its dodo de-extinction program a prioritized list of targets for experimental testing.
GenoMorph finds 653 beak-size and 1,698 beak-thickness candidates
The platform combines comparative genomics, developmental biology and high-resolution 3D morphology to predict which regulatory elements are active during development. It then ranks those most strongly associated with differences in physical form. Regulatory DNA controls when, where and how strongly genes are activated, and it helps shape traits such as skull and beak structure.
Colossal's avian team built an atlas from hundreds of chicken, quail, duck and pigeon samples covering six embryonic stages and three regions of the developing face. The team combined it with genomes and CT-derived skull measurements from more than 70 bird species, including the Nicobar pigeon, the dodo's closest living relative. Each skull was mapped using 541 anatomical landmarks.
The analysis flagged 653 elements associated with beak size and 1,698 associated with beak thickness and breadth. Colossal states the findings do not yet establish causation. The elements are now entering functional-validation studies, and those confirmed to influence craniofacial development may be considered for precision editing in the Nicobar pigeon genome.
"De-extinction is as much a data problem as a biology problem," said CEO Ben Lamm, noting that few dodo genomes survive for population-level comparisons. Avian Species Director Anna Keyte said assembling the training dataset took more than a year of experimental work. Preliminary results have been presented at the Craniofacial Gordon Research Conference and the 2026 Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution annual meeting.
Colossal says the framework can be applied to any bird lineage, including endangered species where large population genomic datasets are unlikely to exist.
Dire wolf assembly method lifts dodo genome to 65-fold average coverage
Colossal applied a computational genome-assembly method developed for its dire wolf project to the dodo genome. Conventional pipelines map ancient DNA fragments to a living reference, here the Nicobar pigeon, and can discard fragments too divergent to align. That leaves gaps and biases the result toward the living species.
Colossal's iterative method uses newly mapped dodo DNA to update the reference progressively, then remaps the ancient DNA so previously unmatched fragments can fill gaps. The process repeats until newly recovered dodo sequences plateau. The resulting assembly has 95% of bases covered at least 5-fold and an average coverage of 65-fold.
Chief Science Officer Beth Shapiro said the team is in the final stages of analysis, with the genome paper still to go through peer review.
Nicobar pigeon colony in Texas grows to 36 birds
Colossal expanded its Texas Nicobar pigeon colony to 36 birds after successful breeding among established pairs. Eggs from the latest breeding season were used to derive Nicobar primordial germ cells, the precursors of sperm and eggs. Colossal calls these cells essential to producing heritable genome edits and future generations of birds carrying selected dodo traits.
The company is also building a telomere-to-telomere Nicobar pigeon genome to improve on the existing chromosome-level assembly. It plans to remap newly available sequence data from the Rodrigues solitaire, an extinct relative of the dodo, against the improved reference to increase coverage and completeness.
First chimeric chickens hatch from Colossal's embryonic stem-cell platform
Colossal scientists hatched the first chimeric chickens produced through a new avian embryonic stem-cell platform. The hatchings confirm that the cultured cells retain the developmental potential to integrate into a host embryo and contribute to its tissues. The company also announced a lipid-nanoparticle system for delivering gene editing into avian embryos.