First new artificial life form created

[AlaskaDenise]

Ready for an ethics debate? DNA researcher Craig Venter "has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth."

The new species is made from an artificial chromosome constructed by a team of 20 leading scientists led by Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith. The chromosome is "381 genes long and contains 580,000 base pairs of genetic code."



It?s based on the DNA sequence for a bacterium known as "Mycoplasma genitalium" that?s been whittled down to its most basic form to include only what it needs to support life. The synthetic chromosome has been named "Mycoplasma laboratorium" and has been, get this, watermarked with ink so that it can be easily identified out in the real world.

The chromosome is transplanted into a living host cell where it then takes control of the cell, effectively changing it into a different species. So the life form itself isn?t completely 100% artificial, per se, but since its genetic makeup is based on an artificially created DNA structure that controls the cell, it can be categorized as man-made since DNA is the building block from which all life is created and maintained.

So what does this mean for you? That all depends.

Venter?s claim is that bacteria could be created to soak up carbon dioxide, which could help in the fight against global warming. Most people would agree that?s a good thing. New life-saving drugs could also be artificially created ? a good thing as well. However, artificially-created bacteria could also be used to make things like biological weapons.

The sky?s the limit, actually, according to bioethics expert Pat Mooney. He claims that Venter has created a "chassis on which you could build almost anything. It could be a contribution to humanity such as new drugs or a huge threat to humanity such as bio-weapons."

While Craig Venter?s intentions seem benevolent at this point, something that might make people a bit nervous is that he?s applied to patent the synthetic bacterium. The idea that something that can be used to create just about anything else can be legally owned and controlled by a single human being is terrifying at best.

Patent reform, anyone?

 

[Laidback Al]

Re: First new artificial life form created

Home page for the J. Craig Venter Institute: http://www.jcvi.org/

from: http://www.jcvi.org/research/

Synthetic Biology

Group Leader: Hamilton O. Smith, M.D.
Dr. Smith, Nobel Laureate, leads this team that includes National Academy of Sciences members Dr. Venter and Clyde Hutchison, Ph.D., who has a joint appointment in the Venter Institute and the University for North Carolina. Dr. Hutchison is one of the pioneers of molecular biology who developed site directed mutagenesis techniques. The other members of this team have been longtime colleagues of Drs. Smith and Venter and are experts in the construction of DNA libraries and DNA manipulation.
Fast becoming one of the hottest new fields of biology, synthetic biology has the potential to impact all areas of society. One of the tenets of chemistry states that to prove true understanding of a structure one must be able to synthesize it. The team at the Venter Institute is concentrating on new methodologies to synthesize large segments of DNA to eventually enable the construction of whole artificial chromosomes. This is the next logical step in genome biology as it is the only way to better understand the minimal component of cellular life and understand the evolution of life. Through new understandings of gene and genome function researchers could one day more efficiently develop pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and textiles.
The Synthetic Biology Group is also interested in understanding and thus engineering new pathways that could lead to new methods for carbon sequestration purposes. Most genomes contain hundreds to thousand of genes necessary for adaptive living in complex environments. By synthesizing minimal genomes the team believes it is possible to construct simple cellular life with desirable synthetic properties. The group has long been committed to fully exploring and educating the public about the ethical issues surrounding synthetic life as such the team is dedicated to developing only synthetic organisms that completely lack the ability to survive outside the lab.
In 2003 the team made significant advances toward the goal of a synthetic genome. Using new methods the group improved the speed and accuracy of genomic synthesis by assembling the 5,386 base pair bacteriophage φX174 (phi X). They did so from short, single strands of synthetically produced, commercially available DNA (known as oligonucleotides) using an adaptation of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), known as polymerase cycle assembly (PCA), to build the phi X 174 genome. The team produced the synthetic phi X in just 14 days and published their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).