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Humans on a quest to
create life April 2, 2008 A quest to create life out of synthetics New science spurs high hopes, worry http://tinyurl.com/2d3ya2 - - - Excerpts: It is science so new that even Harvard does not yet offer a formal course in it, although some of the field's pioneering research has been done at the university as well as down the avenue at MIT. Sometimes called "genetic engineering on steroids," synthetic biology is a fuzzily- defined but fast-emerging science that some believe will transform genetic approaches to research in medicine, energy, ecology, agriculture, and more in the coming decades. At heart, it is about building living entities from lifeless chemicals. Instead of just modifying existing organisms - as genetic engineers have done for 30 years - synthetic biologists are itching to build all- new life forms from artificial DNA. "The idea is to synthesize DNA in an organ- ized way, so we don't have to rely on nature to make useful things." Imagined uses include pollution-gobbling arti- ficial microbes, "living" computers made of biocomponents, synthetic body cells pro- grammed to hunt tumors, eco-dwellings grown literally from seed, and even roses rigged with genetic "switches" that cause them to bloom and exude perfume on your birthday. But synthetic biology inspires dread among those convinced it will allow terrorists to easily assemble smallpox-like viruses and other bioweapons. Also alarming to some detractors is that the science may confer on practitioners the most awesome power of all - that of creating life. ... J. Craig Venter - the razzle-dazzle researcher- entrepreneur who played a key role in sequenc- ing the human genome - announced earlier this year that his scientific team had assembled the entire genetic structure of a bacterium from off-the-shelf chemical components. That is just a baby step from forging synthetic life, a feat Venter expects to accomplish by the end of this year. "If our plan succeeds, a new creature will have entered the world," Venter recently told reporters. While critics warn of dangers, synthetic biolo- gists see their work as just common-sense appli- cation of engineering principles to the assembly of biological entities. Too much of genetic engineering, they say, has involved tweezing a strand of DNA here or inserting a bit of DNA there, and then waiting to see what happens. What is needed are stan- dardized parts and assembly procedures so that swaths of DNA and other genetic structures can be created without the biological equivalent of constantly re-inventing the wheel. ... "Scientists are making strands of DNA that have never existed, so there is nothing to compare them to. There's no agreed mechanisms for safety, no policies." ... "I see it as a bit like the 'matter compiler' on Star Trek," ... referring to a device on the fictional Starship Enterprise that made new objects out of basic atoms. ... While critical early work is quietly ongoing in the engineering of future fuels and pharmaceuti- cals, much of the limelight is falling on Venter's plan to create a new life form. ... In January, Venter and his team at the J. Craig Venter Institute ... grabbed worldwide headlines upon creating the entire genome of the Myco- plasma bacterium, a feat accomplished by using special synthesizing machines to churn out 101 custom-built DNA "cassettes," or snippets, each representing about 1 percent of the bacterium's genome. These, in turn, were stitched into larger pieces, using bacteria and yeast as natural production lines; until finally the snippets were placed in the correct order - the first true copy of an entire bacterial chromosome. "This entire process started with four bottles of chemicals, containing what's represented by A, G, C, and T," Venter told reporters, referring to the chemical building blocks of DNA. Venter has predicted that sometime this year his team will implant the synthetic chromosome into a living microbe, then "boot" it up - effectively creating an entirely new organism. That will mark an extraordinary milestone for synthetic biology. "The future of life depends not only in our ability to understand and use DNA, but also in creating new synthetic life forms," Venter said in a recent academic lecture delivered on the BBC. "That is, life which is forged not by Darwinian evolu- tion, but created by human intelligence." | - - - end excerpts - - -
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