Phoenix Project

The Phoenix Project was an initiative begun in 2013 and 2014 by Abstergo Industries through their Abstergo Entertainment wing following the death of John Standish, in the hope of sequencing the First Civilization triple-helix genome in order to set it through Animus technology in order to master the secrets of First Civilization technology, especially the Pieces of Eden. To this effect, Abstergo hoped to find more Sages in order to use their high quantities of First Civilization DNA as a basis.

Origins
The beginnings of the project can be seen in the initial model for DNA proposed by Rosalind Franklin in 1952, an inaccurate triple-helix model that was disposed of with the later discovery of the double helix as the true basis of most DNA. Due to this discovery, her work was wholly ignored aside from as an example of an inaccurate conclusion.

Death of John Standish
As Abstergo Entertainment analyzed the genome of John Standish following his death, they found that he had an extremely high quantity of triple-helix DNA, proving that Franklin's research was not wrong, but merely from small traces of Precursor DNA. To this end, they planned to use samples of people like John Standish, the Sages.

The Assassins learned of this, and planned to have a collection of people, led by their operative Bishop, try to track down and find Sages in history so as to avoid those deceased, and therefore the traces of their DNA, from falling into Abstergo's hands.

Trivia

 * A phoenix is a mythical bird that was said to be able to be reborn from its own ashes, much like how Abstergo plans to have the First Civilization be brought back through its own remains in humankind's DNA.