Artificial Life

SageCat · Artificial Life

Scientists are on the verge of creating the world's first artificial life form, it has been reported.

Craig Venter, a DNA researcher, has built an entirely synthetic chromosome - a sequence of genes - and plans to implant it in an existing cell.

If he succeeds he and his team will have created an almost entirely new life form for the first time.

Researchers hope the discovery will lead to developments in bio-engineering to help tackle climate change, or provide alternative energy sources.

It will also provoke widespread debate about the ethics of "playing God" by creating new species.

Mr Venter told The Guardian newspaper that creating the new life form would be "a very important philosophical step in the history of our species".

"We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before," he said.

Mr Venter's team is the first to create an artificial chromosome. It is 381 genes long and has been named Mycoplasma laboratorium.

The scientists hope to implant it in to the cell of another bacterium to create the artificial life.

The resulting bacterium will rely on the molecules of the host cell to reproduce, but will otherwise be entirely artificial.

Anyone got any thoughts on this .....................

Riktor48

I recall hearing similar stories before - and always with the promise of further information in the forthcoming future! I'm cynical enough to feel that such stories are so often simply promoted to provide funding for the relevant research groups!

But (and it's a big 'but') assuming to be true, then I'm very uneasy about it. And the usual dubious excuses that it will benefit whatever's the buzz-word is at the time(climate change???)

In my view, creating new life (in whatever form) is always going to be a huge and terrifying step - apart from the usual ethical questions, there must always be a major concern of the possible abuse of that power.

Koko

I'm with Rik on this one. It is fantastic what modern science can do, but is it always right to do? The ethical questions are enormous...It could do much good, but at the same time, how much bad???

SageCat

Yep ............... I agree with you guys. DNA research is fascinating stuff, but to mess with it too much could spell disaster, especially if in the wrong hands.

I've just finished reading the new novel by Michael Crichton called 'Next' which is part fiction/part fact about gene patenting. Excellent book ............. and quite scary too, but it does illustrate what could happen if gene therapy is allowed to get out of hand.

Riktor48

SageCat

Yep ................. it was this sort of thing that prompted him to write the book.

'In 2005, Michael returned to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, where he had done postdoctoral work, to attend a conference on Genetics and Law sponsored by the Jefferson Institute. He was surprised and outraged by what he learned about the current laws regarding a range of issues in genetics. He immediately put aside what he had been working on, and began research for the book that became NEXT.'