Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first living cell to be controlled entirely by synthetic DNA.
The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell.
The resulting microbe then looked and behaved like the species "dictated" by the synthetic DNA.
The advance, published in Science, has been hailed as a scientific landmark, but critics say there are dangers posed by synthetic organisms.
Some also suggest that the potential benefits of the technology have been over-stated.
But the researchers hope eventually to design bacterial cells that will produce medicines and fuels and even absorb greenhouse gases.
The team was led by Dr Craig Venter of the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Maryland and California.
Craig Venter defends the synthetic living cell He and his colleagues had previously made a synthetic bacterial genome, and transplanted the genome of one bacterium into another.
Now, the scientists have put both methods together, to create what they call a "synthetic cell", although only its genome is truly synthetic.
Dr Venter likened the advance to making new software for the cell.
The researchers copied an existing bacterial genome. They sequenced its genetic code and then used "synthesis machines" to chemically construct a copy.
HOW A SYNTHETIC CELL WAS CREATED
The scientists "decoded" the chromosome of an existing bacterial cell - using a computer to read each of the letters of genetic code. BACK1 of 3NEXT Dr Venter told BBC News: "We've now been able to take our synthetic chromosome and transplant it into a recipient cell - a different organism.
"As soon as this new software goes into the cell, the cell reads [it] and converts into the species specified in that genetic code."
The new bacteria replicated over a billion times, producing copies that contained and were controlled by the constructed, synthetic DNA.
"This is the first time any synthetic DNA has been in complete control of a cell," said Dr Venter.
'New industrial revolution' Dr Venter and his colleagues hope eventually to design and build new bacteria that will perform useful functions.
"I think they're going to potentially create a new industrial revolution," he said.
"If we can really get cells to do the production that we want, they could help wean us off oil and reverse some of the damage to the environment by capturing carbon dioxide."
WATTS WHAT...
Continue reading the main story Even some scientists worry we lack the means to weigh up the risks such novel organisms might represent, once set loose
Susan Watts BBC Newsnight science editor Read Susan Watts's thoughts Analysis from around the world Send us your comments Dr Venter and his colleagues are already collaborating with pharmaceutical and fuel companies to design and develop chromosomes for bacteria that would produce useful fuels and new vaccines.
But critics say that the potential benefits of synthetic organisms have been overstated.
Dr Helen Wallace from Genewatch UK, an organisation that monitors developments in genetic technologies, told BBC News that synthetic bacteria could be dangerous.
"If you release new organisms into the environment, you can do more harm than good," she said.
"By releasing them into areas of pollution, [with the aim of cleaning it up], you're actually releasing a new kind of pollution.
"We don't know how these organisms will behave in the environment."
Continue reading the main story The risks are unparalleled, we need safety evaluation for this kind of radical research and protections from military or terrorist misuse
Julian Savulescu Oxford University ethics professor Profile: Craig Venter Q&A: The meaning of synthetic life Ethics concern over synthetic cell Dr Wallace accused Dr Venter of playing down the potential drawbacks.
"He isn't God," she said, "he's actually being very human; trying to get money invested in his technology and avoid regulation that would restrict its use."
But Dr Venter said that he was "driving the discussions" about the regulations governing this relatively new scientific field and about the ethical implications of the work.
He said: "In 2003, when we made the first synthetic virus, it underwent an extensive ethical review that went all the way up to the level of the White House.
"And there have been extensive reviews including from the National Academy of Sciences, which has done a comprehensive report on this new field.
"We think these are important issues and we urge continued discussion that we want to take part in."
Ethical discussions Dr Gos Micklem, a geneticist from the University of Cambridge, said that the advance was "undoubtedly a landmark" study.
But, he said, "there is already a wealth of simple, cheap, powerful and mature techniques for genetically engineering a range of organisms. Therefore, for the time being, this approach is unlikely to supplant existing methods for genetic engineering".
The ethical discussions surrounding the creation of synthetic or artificial life are set to continue.
Professor Julian Savulescu, from the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, said the potential of this science was "in the far future, but real and significant".
"But the risks are also unparalleled," he continued. "We need new standards of safety evaluation for this kind of radical research and protections from military or terrorist misuse and abuse.
"These could be used in the future to make the most powerful bioweapons imaginable. The challenge is to eat the fruit without the worm."
The advance did not pose a danger in the form of bio-terrorism, Dr Venter said.
"That was reviewed extensively in the US in a report from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Washington defence think tank, indicating that there were very small new dangers from this.
"Most people are in agreement that there is a slight increase in the potential for harm. But there's an exponential increase in the potential benefit to society," he told BBC's Newsnight.
"The flu vaccine you'll get next year could be developed by these processes," he added.
Fascinating Stuff I might say. I was planning to work on this idea during my grad research, but if you can think of it, they are probably already working on it. The possibilities and implications are endless if we can understand and manipulate the genome of the organism for our own biological needs or our own chemical industrial needs.
That Craig Venter guy was the first to sequence the human genome with Francis Collins, who gave my high school commencement ceremony speech. It's scary how many higher education degrees these guys have.
The actual discovery seems to be just the first step though. I'm sure the breakthrough will be another "stepping stone" when we look back to the past...
you guys talk about the zombie apocolypse like its a bad thing. As long as they are the slow moving dawn of the dead zombies, im all for it. The fast moving 28 days later zombies can fuck right off.
it's pretty cool stuff but not that big of a deal imo. (don't get me wrong, it's huge and pretty impressive but not as big of a milestone as Venter like to present it.)
except of the lenght of the genome (1 million? ololol) it was only 2 steps which have been done before combined. Anyway pretty cool. Anyway, always when I hear/see/read about stuff like that it totally amaze me. I'm one of these persons that actually don't really think about what could go wrong or how it could be abused but about all the possibilites which we have with this technic (of course way advanced) in like 10 or 20 years. It's unbelievable what the human mind can produce sometimes.
This thread is full of luls now. But in all seriousness, I really hope they stick to creating things that can help. Iron Man suit otw. I can only see this turning bad...we're fine now right? We don't need synthetic fuel. It would be nice, but it's not necessary. Not yet anyways. Man is a vile creature, we're fucked.
I recall seeing some guy talking about this (discovery channel) a while back. He was specifically talking about the absorbing of greenhouse gasses, and that if such a bacteria were to be created, it would solve most of the current global warming problems. A bacteria could be created, and released into the ocean that would absorb excess CO2, and once absorbed, the bacteria would sink to the bottom of the ocean, ridding our atmosphere of a lot of it. Pretty neat stuff.
On May 22 2010 02:50 Chriamon wrote: I recall seeing some guy talking about this (discovery channel) a while back. He was specifically talking about the absorbing of greenhouse gasses, and that if such a bacteria were to be created, it would solve most of the current global warming problems. A bacteria could be created, and released into the ocean that would absorb excess CO2, and once absorbed, the bacteria would sink to the bottom of the ocean, ridding our atmosphere of a lot of it. Pretty neat stuff.
Yeah, lets reinvent algae and then have it bloom everywhere.
On May 22 2010 02:50 Chriamon wrote: I recall seeing some guy talking about this (discovery channel) a while back. He was specifically talking about the absorbing of greenhouse gasses, and that if such a bacteria were to be created, it would solve most of the current global warming problems. A bacteria could be created, and released into the ocean that would absorb excess CO2, and once absorbed, the bacteria would sink to the bottom of the ocean, ridding our atmosphere of a lot of it. Pretty neat stuff.
And then proceed to turn into godzilla and wipe out human race.
Furthermore, it seems like all we invent is intended to somehow making sustainable an already unsustainable attitude torwards life. Instead of playing mad scientist and making shit like this we could also try to reevaluate our way of life.
Imagine if they created a bacteria with good intentions that ended up being the key to the end of all life on earth. Kinda like what happened to the aliens in War of the Worlds, although that was just natural bacteria.
Weren't the Zerg synthetic creatures that went horribly out of control? This is why these scientist guys need to watch old replays of sAviOr vs Oov. Let them know just how out of hand this shit can get.
Before someone thinks about turning this into a biological weapon of some sort, please do know that we can already create potent biological weapons WITHOUT using this technology.
Like most lab-bateria, they are genetically engineered such that they cannot grow outside of labs. The concept behind this is very simple - these species typically have major functional genes knocked out so they cannot live outside of the specifically controlled lab environment. Therefore, even when accidentally released outside, they will be dead within minutes to hours - not enough time for them to mutate into anything remotely dangerous.
In summary, these things won't turn "rogue" because they will die a lot sooner before they have the slightest chance to change.
On May 22 2010 05:19 illu wrote: Before someone thinks about turning this into a biological weapon of some sort, please do know that we can already create potent biological weapons WITHOUT using this technology.
Its the American way... why settle for just Killing people, when you can figure out how to kill MORE people. It's really just hard work to try to save your tax dollars and make them more efficient :D
i saw this too i feel bad for people that were doing similar projects they didn't get to be first, although this will definitely open up a lot of new, exciting research
On May 22 2010 02:52 years wrote: And then proceed to turn into godzilla and wipe out human race.
Furthermore, it seems like all we invent is intended to somehow making sustainable an already unsustainable attitude torwards life. Instead of playing mad scientist and making shit like this we could also try to reevaluate our way of life.
Just throwing it out there.
It's not really scientists' job, is it? It's the general population's problem, which in most countries means the parliament's problem. Science finds new things, people don't screw new things up, everything works out. Obviously there's an obstacle somewhere along the line.
On May 22 2010 02:50 Chriamon wrote: A bacteria could be created, and released into the ocean that would absorb excess CO2, and once absorbed, the bacteria would sink to the bottom of the ocean, ridding our atmosphere of a lot of it. Pretty neat stuff.
Yeah, lets reinvent algae and then have it bloom everywhere.
Its not just algae, its super algae, with the potential to sink all usable biomass to the bottom of the ocean!!
I have a bad feeling about this... Just imagine the huge potential for harm this has. Somebody could easily create some sort of death virus, a whole new level of biological weapons.
On May 22 2010 02:50 Chriamon wrote: I recall seeing some guy talking about this (discovery channel) a while back. He was specifically talking about the absorbing of greenhouse gasses, and that if such a bacteria were to be created, it would solve most of the current global warming problems. A bacteria could be created, and released into the ocean that would absorb excess CO2, and once absorbed, the bacteria would sink to the bottom of the ocean, ridding our atmosphere of a lot of it. Pretty neat stuff.
And then proceed to turn into godzilla and wipe out human race.
Furthermore, it seems like all we invent is intended to somehow making sustainable an already unsustainable attitude torwards life. Instead of playing mad scientist and making shit like this we could also try to reevaluate our way of life.
Just throwing it out there.
wow, thank you for throwing your wisdom out there
you should email this to all the leaders of our world, once they read your cutting edge brilliant insight they will surely make the world a better place
On May 22 2010 07:00 Fulgrim wrote: I have a bad feeling about this... Just imagine the huge potential for harm this has. Somebody could easily create some sort of death virus, a whole new level of biological weapons.
welcome to 1982, when this was a large concern: + Show Spoiler +
It doesn't happen
I don't understand why this would be something to be worried about. The united states alone could literally destroy all life on earth in a matter of hours. Why would that be more harmful then instant vaporization of the planet? lol
On May 22 2010 02:50 Chriamon wrote: I recall seeing some guy talking about this (discovery channel) a while back. He was specifically talking about the absorbing of greenhouse gasses, and that if such a bacteria were to be created, it would solve most of the current global warming problems. A bacteria could be created, and released into the ocean that would absorb excess CO2, and once absorbed, the bacteria would sink to the bottom of the ocean, ridding our atmosphere of a lot of it. Pretty neat stuff.
And then proceed to turn into godzilla and wipe out human race.
Furthermore, it seems like all we invent is intended to somehow making sustainable an already unsustainable attitude torwards life. Instead of playing mad scientist and making shit like this we could also try to reevaluate our way of life.
Just throwing it out there.
wow, thank you for throwing your wisdom out there
you should email this to all the leaders of our world, once they read your cutting edge brilliant insight they will surely make the world a better place
I heard that if you ask really nicely, people quit being materialistic.
On May 22 2010 02:50 Chriamon wrote: I recall seeing some guy talking about this (discovery channel) a while back. He was specifically talking about the absorbing of greenhouse gasses, and that if such a bacteria were to be created, it would solve most of the current global warming problems. A bacteria could be created, and released into the ocean that would absorb excess CO2, and once absorbed, the bacteria would sink to the bottom of the ocean, ridding our atmosphere of a lot of it. Pretty neat stuff.
And then proceed to turn into godzilla and wipe out human race.
Furthermore, it seems like all we invent is intended to somehow making sustainable an already unsustainable attitude torwards life. Instead of playing mad scientist and making shit like this we could also try to reevaluate our way of life.
Just throwing it out there.
So.. changing human nature.... you know... they could do that in theory... (although i doubt there is a greed gene? )
On May 22 2010 02:05 icystorage wrote: man playing God. i hope man doesnt abuse this if it gets more advanced
We've been playing "God" since we invented the concept of medicine and intervening in people who were doomed to death and gave them the necessary medical treatment to stay alive. Also if you are religious, God gave us minds to use to their full potential =)
I've been wondering wtf happened to Craig Venter, I saw his TED talk in 08 and he's like yeah in 1.5 years we'll have bacteria that convert CO2 into Octane and I'm like wow sweet and now it's 2 years later and he just now created a test one? fail.
On May 22 2010 08:02 The_Voidless wrote: Is cloning kinda like creating synthetic life? Wouldn't the same principles be used? I would like to know I'm a chemist not a biologist.
The difference is that in cloning you use a pre existing cell's genetic information and then grow it.
In this, they basically copied all the genes required for life onto a big ol strand of DNA, hollowed up a bacteria, then stuck the DNA in and it works.
Don't see how this is amazing news or anything, but whatever, makes a good news story .
Really cool with a lot of very positive possibilities... but also an extremely dangerous road. The more progress we make in this field the more dangerous it becomes, both physically and socially.
On May 22 2010 08:09 DallasTx wrote: I really dislike man playing the role of god :/
While there's logic behind caution, pretty much every scientific advance we made at some point was playing the role of god...
On May 22 2010 08:02 The_Voidless wrote: Is cloning kinda like creating synthetic life? Wouldn't the same principles be used? I would like to know I'm a chemist not a biologist.
The difference is that in cloning you use a pre existing cell's genetic information and then grow it.
In this, they basically copied all the genes required for life onto a big ol strand of DNA, hollowed up a bacteria, then stuck the DNA in and it works.
That over simplification = cloning as well lol
What made this special is that they determined what genes to put in the organism´s genome. ie they can determine everthing the organism is capable of doing.
On May 22 2010 08:09 DallasTx wrote: I really dislike man playing the role of god :/
but man made god so why can't he play the role he created.
seriously disgusted that deist thinking like this still exists. If god was so great he would of made the species we are (now) designing for a better future. If god was so wonderful why wouldnt he do this himself. Sounds like we are better then god. I bet these people even worked a sunday or two. What a fucking slacker your god is.
On May 22 2010 08:09 DallasTx wrote: I really dislike man playing the role of god :/
but man made god so why can't he play the role he created.
seriously disgusted that deist thinking like this still exists. If god was so great he would of made the species we are (now) designing for a better future. If god was so wonderful why wouldnt he do this himself. Sounds like we are better then god. I bet these people even worked a sunday or two. What a fucking slacker your god is.
Yeah, I really asked for a debate over god. Nice job trying to make yourself seem smarter by being an atheist though.
Alright just to set things straight when people in this thread talk about "man playing god" they are talking about the creation of entirely new forms of life. Yah know, the story of genesis in the bible; the creation of life. Not medicine; healing people of illness, or etc.
I saw this story when it was published on the BBC website. Very amazing stuff and of course with the explosion of sc-fi in the last 50 years, we automatically do connect this story with very bad things happening. If if will come to pass, only time will tell, but this does have amazing potential to do the world so much good too if handled properly. Like really the possiblities are endless, but then again that is progress in general.
On May 22 2010 08:09 DallasTx wrote: I really dislike man playing the role of god :/
but man made god so why can't he play the role he created.
seriously disgusted that deist thinking like this still exists. If god was so great he would of made the species we are (now) designing for a better future. If god was so wonderful why wouldnt he do this himself. Sounds like we are better then god. I bet these people even worked a sunday or two. What a fucking slacker your god is.
Yeah, I really asked for a debate over god. Nice job trying to make yourself seem smarter by being an atheist though.
you really did. It would be like me jumping into a thread about them finding noah's ark and just saying "duh i wish people would just drop this fairytale bs"
Doesn't this allow scientists to bypass stem cells? Usually you need cells from a fetus to have cells to work with but it seems this would allow us to create advanced solutions without relying upon the volatile issue that is stem cell research.
On May 22 2010 08:35 On_Slaught wrote: Doesn't this allow scientists to bypass stem cells? Usually you need cells from a fetus to have cells to work with but it seems this would allow us to create advanced solutions without relying upon the volatile issue that is stem cell research.
If stems cells are volatile, this would be like putting nitroglycerin in a blender
On May 22 2010 08:35 On_Slaught wrote: Doesn't this allow scientists to bypass stem cells? Usually you need cells from a fetus to have cells to work with but it seems this would allow us to create advanced solutions without relying upon the volatile issue that is stem cell research.
If stems cells are volatile, this would be like putting nitroglycerin in a blender
until someone vaguely mentions that a human phetus may be very beneficial to research and the catholic church goes apeshit, after all, those are perfectly good future alter boy-toys
The greatest part of this stuff is the inevitable voices that spring up saying how dangerous or not dangerous this technology is, when they haven't taken the time to understand anything about genetics or biology.
Yeah seem very interessant and dangerous. What is life is NOT a biological question, it's a philosophical one... that's the problem in my point of view.
Seriously, the idea of "improving evolution", and "improving people" is very very scary.
Anyway LOL at the guy saying you actually need to know biology to say this is dangerous : you are morons. And LOL at the guy saying "improving evolution" is the same as medecine...
Can't you see that it is a dangerous idea just to "improve evolution"; cauz you need to define what you need to improve (need two legs? change dna so that people are not violent? just read Huxley guys...).
PS: when the guy is saying "playing god" he is not referring to god like the christian or islamic god or anything (well maybe he is but that is not the point), he is referring to an entity who is omnipotent: who knows everything and can control everything. That's not the case of humanity and will never be. When you look at the possibilities of synthetic life, you can also (if you have a bit imagination) see all the bad that could come from such technologies. I will just quote spider man since that's the kind of quote you like you science freek: with great power come great responsabilities.
Seriously, the idea of "improving evolution", and "improving people" is very very scary.
Thats the one thing I find comforting about this. We'll be so fail versus evolution that anything that did escape the cleanroom would just find itself the lowest rung of the food chain. (at least for a few decades)
On May 22 2010 08:02 The_Voidless wrote: Is cloning kinda like creating synthetic life? Wouldn't the same principles be used? I would like to know I'm a chemist not a biologist.
The difference is that in cloning you use a pre existing cell's genetic information and then grow it.
In this, they basically copied all the genes required for life onto a big ol strand of DNA, hollowed up a bacteria, then stuck the DNA in and it works.
That over simplification = cloning as well lol
What made this special is that they determined what genes to put in the organism´s genome. ie they can determine everthing the organism is capable of doing.
It's really mostly a technological advancement and a proof of principle. They synthesized an entire bacterial genome from scratch and transferred it into a host cell. They did not invent this genome, it's a modified version of what is found in nature. One of their goals is to determine what are the minimal sets of genes required for life. Now they will trim down this synthetic genome and determine what is needed. He wants to create a bare bones genome to use as a base to create all sorts of different functional organisms.
Seriously, the idea of "improving evolution", and "improving people" is very very scary.
Thats the one thing I find comforting about this. We'll be so fail versus evolution that anything that did escape the cleanroom would just find itself the lowest rung of the food chain. (at least for a few decades)
Some biologist made an exposition in my country about how human will evolve. There are many possibilities, but some says that we will not evolve anymore because our technologies will prevent us to do so(in some models we actually go weaker in terms of physical power, loosing hair and things).
So we do not need to "improve ourselves", because we have tools around us that permit us a better control of our surroundings. And again, what will you improve? Bigger boobs FOR EVERYBODY!?
On May 22 2010 08:35 On_Slaught wrote: Doesn't this allow scientists to bypass stem cells? Usually you need cells from a fetus to have cells to work with but it seems this would allow us to create advanced solutions without relying upon the volatile issue that is stem cell research.
This has nothing to do with stem cells. These are bacterial cells several orders of magnitude less complex. This bacteria has a genome that consists of a single chromosome of about 1 million bp, by contrast the human genome is 46 chromosomes and totals 6 billion bp.
Methods to "bypass" stem cells already exist. We can now reprogram ordinary skin cells into embryonic stem cells, but their are a few caveats.
On May 22 2010 11:01 bearbuddy wrote: I'm surprised that they have only been able to do this now, given how much we already know about solid phase synthesis and other techniques.
Cool accomplishment, nonetheless.
DNA synthesis technology is still far behind nature. In this project they had to use yeast cells to stitch many small fragments of the the synthetic DNA together.
He's also working on the idea of incorporating synthetic (i.e. not A, G, T, or C) nucleotides into DNA. The new codons could be used to code for synthetic amino acids, meaning you could theoretically create proteins that could not possibly be created by life as we know it so far.
Imagine growing an organism on the moon that gets its energy from solar radiation, it's nutrients from rocks, and spits out hydrocarbons as byproducts.
On May 22 2010 10:43 ArKaDo wrote: Yeah seem very interessant and dangerous. What is life is NOT a biological question, it's a philosophical one... that's the problem in my point of view.
Seriously, the idea of "improving evolution", and "improving people" is very very scary.
Anyway LOL at the guy saying you actually need to know biology to say this is dangerous : you are morons. And LOL at the guy saying "improving evolution" is the same as medecine...
Can't you see that it is a dangerous idea just to "improve evolution"; cauz you need to define what you need to improve (need two legs? change dna so that people are not violent? just read Huxley guys...).
PS: when the guy is saying "playing god" he is not referring to god like the christian or islamic god or anything (well maybe he is but that is not the point), he is referring to an entity who is omnipotent: who knows everything and can control everything. That's not the case of humanity and will never be. When you look at the possibilities of synthetic life, you can also (if you have a bit imagination) see all the bad that could come from such technologies. I will just quote spider man since that's the kind of quote you like you science freek: with great power come great responsabilities.
I wonder how religious organizations are going to react to this. there was a paragraph in the OP about ethics but I thnk this is huge landmark event ethically.
Transferring genetic material from one cell to another is relatively old news, its pretty similar to how cloning works, altough in the case of cloning you'd transfer the nuclei rather than extract it, sequence it and use a PCR to create a copy of it (its pretty old tech).
They arent engineering a new bacteria, its just about being able to copy/paste some already existing genome. Its quite another thing to understand the dynamics of the genes contained in a genome to create a completly new and unexisting organism. They've been studying drosophilia (fruit fly?) genome for decades and they probably havent figured 10% of it.
I guess new things like this always pushes the bounds of ethics and religion but the worst thing to do would be get radical in kill the scientist, like they did the Russian geneticist because they thought they were playing god.
On May 22 2010 08:35 On_Slaught wrote: Doesn't this allow scientists to bypass stem cells? Usually you need cells from a fetus to have cells to work with but it seems this would allow us to create advanced solutions without relying upon the volatile issue that is stem cell research.
If stems cells are volatile, this would be like putting nitroglycerin in a blender
stem cells dont just explode by themselves are u stupid fragkrag
This hardly qualifies as "Synthetic" life. I'll save that description for when we actually start designing and building new proteins from the ground up.
On May 22 2010 14:32 AeroGear wrote: They arent engineering a new bacteria, its just about being able to copy/paste some already existing genome. Its quite another thing to understand the dynamics of the genes contained in a genome to create a completly new and unexisting organism. They've been studying drosophilia (fruit fly?) genome for decades and they probably havent figured 10% of it.
Actually, they are.
They wrote the code from scratch, using a limited number of existing genes to create a brand new genome. Two years ago they just regenerated the genome of a bacteria by artificially building the DNA molecule. Now they created a new DNA sequence (new species) using software.
On May 22 2010 15:30 Biochemist wrote: This hardly qualifies as "Synthetic" life. I'll save that description for when we actually start designing and building new proteins from the ground up.
With regards to scientific development this is a very small step on a long road and labeling it synthetic is not quite right. However, this experiment shows that mankind can actually play for god. A cell does not need to get its DNA by replication within a cell. We can create DNA that a cell will use, just fine. This goes against the belief that life is more special than humans can comprehend, so special that the divine must be the source. In this context I think it is quite fine to call the result of this experiment 'synthetic life'.
A lot of scientists don't even believe HIV exists. AIDS is hardly understood.
Even the ones who don't agree HIV is the only thing going on with AIDS, still agree HIV exists.
Imagine growing an organism on the moon that gets its energy from solar radiation, it's nutrients from rocks, and spits out hydrocarbons as byproducts.
Are you suggesting that they would be able to transmute something that isn't hydrogen/carbon/oxygen into something that is?
What this is is a small technical step along the road to something that has a lot of potential. What it definitely is NOT is the creation of synthetic life. I like Ventor but in this case I feel he's just playing to the media to hype his project and maybe to get his noble prize (which I think he probably deserves). There are no new ethical concerns attached to this particular advancement, the media hype has just re-ignited issues that were already present.
For me a far more impressive step would be if they manage to design a larger strand of DNA and alter a bacteria in an entirely new way to do something useful for mankind.
What they've done is like the equivalent of showing you can store charge in a vacuum tube... until you use that to actually make a computer it's not really a monumental step.
On May 22 2010 02:56 Destro wrote: what about terraforming mars via synthetic micro organisms ;o
One would assume at this stage synthetic microorganisms would be less stable than natural ones
Mars has no magnetic field (thats huge btw, makes life basically impossible) and next to no atmosphere, regional temperatures over a year vary by 80-100 degrees celsius. But yeah, its a nice sci-fi plot that perhaps holds some ground a couple centuries into the future
Scientists have today announced the discovery of fire. This is a great step in our scientific knowledge and civilization development, but there are many ethical concerns that this new discovery could backfire and take lives, or even be used against peaceful people....
I'm liking the way Dr. Venter has built a solid foundation in the last 13 years for his research and I'm not that happy that his research focused straight on a viable organism. Of course, as compared to other labs that try to recreate lifeforms (by starting even lower with amino-acids and simple RNA), he is focused on obtaining a new slave form: the worker bacteria.
Since our mech nanotechnology can't draw chemical energy from any environment and does not have auto-replication mechanisms, we must focus instead on less useful and less efficient technology that has this ability.
On May 22 2010 10:43 ArKaDo wrote: Yeah seem very interessant and dangerous. What is life is NOT a biological question, it's a philosophical one... that's the problem in my point of view.
Seriously, the idea of "improving evolution", and "improving people" is very very scary.
Anyway LOL at the guy saying you actually need to know biology to say this is dangerous : you are morons. And LOL at the guy saying "improving evolution" is the same as medecine...
Can't you see that it is a dangerous idea just to "improve evolution"; cauz you need to define what you need to improve (need two legs? change dna so that people are not violent? just read Huxley guys...).
PS: when the guy is saying "playing god" he is not referring to god like the christian or islamic god or anything (well maybe he is but that is not the point), he is referring to an entity who is omnipotent: who knows everything and can control everything. That's not the case of humanity and will never be. When you look at the possibilities of synthetic life, you can also (if you have a bit imagination) see all the bad that could come from such technologies. I will just quote spider man since that's the kind of quote you like you science freek: with great power come great responsabilities.
I thought they had schools in France. :S
Go tell your queen to attack us with your silly little king.
The guy said in the video that one of his goal is "improving life" and "improving the people", i mean come on...
On May 22 2010 10:43 ArKaDo wrote: Yeah seem very interessant and dangerous. What is life is NOT a biological question, it's a philosophical one... that's the problem in my point of view.
Seriously, the idea of "improving evolution", and "improving people" is very very scary.
Anyway LOL at the guy saying you actually need to know biology to say this is dangerous : you are morons. And LOL at the guy saying "improving evolution" is the same as medecine...
Can't you see that it is a dangerous idea just to "improve evolution"; cauz you need to define what you need to improve (need two legs? change dna so that people are not violent? just read Huxley guys...).
PS: when the guy is saying "playing god" he is not referring to god like the christian or islamic god or anything (well maybe he is but that is not the point), he is referring to an entity who is omnipotent: who knows everything and can control everything. That's not the case of humanity and will never be. When you look at the possibilities of synthetic life, you can also (if you have a bit imagination) see all the bad that could come from such technologies. I will just quote spider man since that's the kind of quote you like you science freek: with great power come great responsabilities.
I thought they had schools in France. :S
Go tell your queen to attack us with your silly little king.
On May 22 2010 10:43 ArKaDo wrote: Yeah seem very interessant and dangerous. What is life is NOT a biological question, it's a philosophical one... that's the problem in my point of view.
Seriously, the idea of "improving evolution", and "improving people" is very very scary.
Anyway LOL at the guy saying you actually need to know biology to say this is dangerous : you are morons. And LOL at the guy saying "improving evolution" is the same as medecine...
Can't you see that it is a dangerous idea just to "improve evolution"; cauz you need to define what you need to improve (need two legs? change dna so that people are not violent? just read Huxley guys...).
PS: when the guy is saying "playing god" he is not referring to god like the christian or islamic god or anything (well maybe he is but that is not the point), he is referring to an entity who is omnipotent: who knows everything and can control everything. That's not the case of humanity and will never be. When you look at the possibilities of synthetic life, you can also (if you have a bit imagination) see all the bad that could come from such technologies. I will just quote spider man since that's the kind of quote you like you science freek: with great power come great responsabilities.
I thought they had schools in France. :S
Go tell your queen to attack us with your silly little king.
My god you're retarded.
You are retarded, midget. "silly little king" is a taunt from a french soldier to the english king in the monty python.... i was joking
On May 22 2010 07:45 OneFierceZealot wrote: in simple terms can someone explain why this is a big deal? or what is this even?
You have to learn how to crawl before you can learn how to walk and learn how to walk before you can learn how to run.
ah thanks man helps a lot.
In the past, to genetically modify a mouse/rat/yeast/bacteria/whatever, we would have to splice (cut/paste) DNA using these things called 'restriction enzymes.' (or infect the genome into a host with a virus vector). It's a huge pain in the ass because they are dependent on recognition sequences that we have to design.
With this technology we could create our own genome from scratch and transplant it into animals. It makes things much faster, and gives us more access to the genome.
You think creating genomes from scratch is less of a pain in the ass than finding appropriate enzymes and designing the primers? REALLY?
The current issue of the economist has great information on this subject and explains some more of the practical applications of this technology, and some of the problems that my arise from it, but in short this is just the first step in a new field.
Imagine growing an organism on the moon that gets its energy from solar radiation, it's nutrients from rocks, and spits out hydrocarbons as byproducts.
Are you suggesting that they would be able to transmute something that isn't hydrogen/carbon/oxygen into something that is?
You don't think those elements are on the moon? The lack of an atmosphere is certainly a problem, but not one that can't eventually be overcome in one way or another.
2008: Craig Venter claims to invent artificial life. And by that he means he took the smallest genome and cut out some things which were unnecessary, and called the remainder man-made artificial life.
2010: Craig Venter claims to invent synthetic life. AFAIK he took the thing from 2008 and rebuilt it using custom nucleotide incorporation, which is a standard technology for a while now on a typically 1/1000 smaller scale.
So I am 99% sure he just redid something which was not artificial life in 2008, and redid it in a pain in the ass way only a large corporation could do, for the sake of claiming they created "synthetic life" and "heralded a new era"? How humble.
It seems funny they try to give off the image you can code a genome like you can write a code when they say they have gone from digital computer information to a functional genome.
Will this artificial organism here do anything itself besides model a large scale gene transplant?
What will the uses be?
What do you learn genetically from this approach?
What will you be able to do with a "artificial organism" better than with the many modified organisms using current approaches? I.e., if someone wants to convert greenhouse gases as this guy does, is there a reason why it would be better to have a chromosome painstakingly derived and created in a time consuming manner from a small parasitic bacteria-which has nothing to do with this proposed function-as opposed to the use of a number of existing bacteria which have can already be manipulated into catalyzing such reactions?
Just because he COPIED an existing genome and put it back into a cell in a roundabout way does not mean he has control to make synthetic organisms that do whatever he wants. I just see a preliminary work in the methods addition of very larger than normal genetic elements into cells. Which is good... but what kind of douche who deletes portions of an existing, small genome and claims to create artificial life and even more sickenly boastful things.
On May 22 2010 07:45 OneFierceZealot wrote: in simple terms can someone explain why this is a big deal? or what is this even?
You have to learn how to crawl before you can learn how to walk and learn how to walk before you can learn how to run.
ah thanks man helps a lot.
In the past, to genetically modify a mouse/rat/yeast/bacteria/whatever, we would have to splice (cut/paste) DNA using these things called 'restriction enzymes.' (or infect the genome into a host with a virus vector). It's a huge pain in the ass because they are dependent on recognition sequences that we have to design.
With this technology we could create our own genome from scratch and transplant it into animals. It makes things much faster, and gives us more access to the genome.
They used restriction enzymes ........ and will still have to. Their method was a huger pain in the ass by far...
What part of the genome are you going to have more access to? If you are copying a preexisting genome and putting it back in a cell... What has shown "more access" in comparison to current abilities?
You are not going to code a new gene that is not basically mostly a preexisting gene, no one can do that in any significant way. And you can already transplant a number of genes, or remove them, or use slightly modified ones.
On May 23 2010 11:04 Servolisk wrote: Just because he COPIED an existing genome and put it back into a cell in a roundabout way does not mean he has control to make synthetic organisms that do whatever he wants. I just see a preliminary work in the methods addition of very larger than normal genetic elements into cells. Which is good... but what kind of douche who deletes portions of an existing, small genome and claims to create artificial life and even more sickenly boastful things.
It's a proof of principle. He said it himself during his press conference that this is just the first step and now he can actually start the experiments that he sought to do 15 years ago when he started the project.
On May 23 2010 11:49 Servolisk wrote: Such as what?
How do you get from this to designing bacteria doing w/e like converting greenhouse gases (in a new way)?
He still wants to create a minimal genome to use as a base for engineering other functions. This will facilitate that because you can delete and add hundreds of genes at once. The techniques could also be used to design and synthesize whole chromosomes to complement an existing cell.
Obviously, there are still a lot of hurdles to overcome in the field, but converting a large digitized sequence to an actual one is now possible and conceivably will be a powerful tool for synthetic biologists.
On May 22 2010 02:05 icystorage wrote: man playing God. i hope man doesnt abuse this if it gets more advanced
It's man being man, and nothing more. No need for illusions of grandeur.
A company named Joule Unlimited managed to create an organism capable of using daylight and CO2 to make diesel. They expect commercial production by 2012.
2008: Craig Venter claims to invent artificial life. And by that he means he took the smallest genome and cut out some things which were unnecessary, and called the remainder man-made artificial life.
2010: Craig Venter claims to invent synthetic life. AFAIK he took the thing from 2008 and rebuilt it using custom nucleotide incorporation, which is a standard technology for a while now on a typically 1/1000 smaller scale.
So I am 99% sure he just redid something which was not artificial life in 2008, and redid it in a pain in the ass way only a large corporation could do, for the sake of claiming they created "synthetic life" and "heralded a new era"? How humble.
It seems funny they try to give off the image you can code a genome like you can write a code when they say they have gone from digital computer information to a functional genome.
Will this artificial organism here do anything itself besides model a large scale gene transplant?
What will the uses be?
What do you learn genetically from this approach?
What will you be able to do with a "artificial organism" better than with the many modified organisms using current approaches? I.e., if someone wants to convert greenhouse gases as this guy does, is there a reason why it would be better to have a chromosome painstakingly derived and created in a time consuming manner from a small parasitic bacteria-which has nothing to do with this proposed function-as opposed to the use of a number of existing bacteria which have can already be manipulated into catalyzing such reactions?
Just because he COPIED an existing genome and put it back into a cell in a roundabout way does not mean he has control to make synthetic organisms that do whatever he wants. I just see a preliminary work in the methods addition of very larger than normal genetic elements into cells. Which is good... but what kind of douche who deletes portions of an existing, small genome and claims to create artificial life and even more sickenly boastful things.
What I understand is that he wrote the genetic code from parts, he did not copy the whole thing, he created a new unique species from scratch. He basically added meta-information in it (website urls, decoding instructions for easter eggs) and injected this new code in an existing functional donor cell. Next division, the daughter cells are very close to the new species both in function and in structure. It is a man made design, it did not appear in a natural way.
What uses? Well he explained we can use them as cheap workers for chemical tasks, like cleaning stuff, creating oil, energy converters, maybe even food, disease inhibitors.... etc...
On May 22 2010 10:43 ArKaDo wrote: Yeah seem very interessant and dangerous. What is life is NOT a biological question, it's a philosophical one... that's the problem in my point of view.
Seriously, the idea of "improving evolution", and "improving people" is very very scary.
Anyway LOL at the guy saying you actually need to know biology to say this is dangerous : you are morons. And LOL at the guy saying "improving evolution" is the same as medecine...
Can't you see that it is a dangerous idea just to "improve evolution"; cauz you need to define what you need to improve (need two legs? change dna so that people are not violent? just read Huxley guys...).
PS: when the guy is saying "playing god" he is not referring to god like the christian or islamic god or anything (well maybe he is but that is not the point), he is referring to an entity who is omnipotent: who knows everything and can control everything. That's not the case of humanity and will never be. When you look at the possibilities of synthetic life, you can also (if you have a bit imagination) see all the bad that could come from such technologies. I will just quote spider man since that's the kind of quote you like you science freek: with great power come great responsabilities.
I thought they had schools in France. :S
Go tell your queen to attack us with your silly little king.
My god you're retarded.
You are retarded, midget. "silly little king" is a taunt from a french soldier to the english king in the monty python.... i was joking
On May 23 2010 11:49 Servolisk wrote: Such as what?
How do you get from this to designing bacteria doing w/e like converting greenhouse gases (in a new way)?
He still wants to create a minimal genome to use as a base for engineering other functions.
What is the point of having a minimal (Mycoplasma) genome if your goal is to engineer novel functions (plus the idea of a minimum genome needs context, and you need to know the majority of gene functions rather than their sequence to be useful as use as a platform IMO)? The is a separate challenge. I am not seeing any reason why this offers a more convenient system than various current systems. I would if, first, the function and role of every gene were known
This will facilitate that because you can delete and add hundreds of genes at once. The techniques could also be used to design and synthesize whole chromosomes to complement an existing cell.
You could already delete hundreds of genes at once. This made no advances in that area.
As for adding... what is the goal? For example the greenhouse gas conversion proposal, people already make transgenic organisms to do that type of thing in the scale of ~10 genes (not greenhouse gases AFAIK but similar concepts). No one is going to take that seriously...to add a genome to do these type of jobs... because it would be equivalent at the very best and counterproductive in all likelihood... -_____-
I am just going by the example put forth in the OP. Is there some other example where it is useful to transplant a whole genome/huge number of genes which you have no idea what they do or how to control?
Obviously, there are still a lot of hurdles to overcome in the field, but converting a large digitized sequence to an actual one is now possible and conceivably will be a powerful tool for synthetic biologists.
Ability to input a large sequence has been improved but that is quite preliminary. It took them many years to copy the genome from mycoplasma, put it back together, and then put it back inside. That just sounds like a large project rather than an improvement of technology. They had unlimited funding and a very large team and a large amount of time, how is that going to be a tool for other biologists?
And that has nothing to do with an organism that has special or novel functionality.
And since the functions of cells he proposes to engineer are a separate project also possible using previously available modified cells I am not seeing what has been added ...
If all scientists were like him when people were able to transplant a pig organ to humans they called it a new species.
Altogether there seems to not be any new science that has been done here aside from the scale. It would be nice if there was but I have not been able to parse it out from the grandiose claims and sci-fi crossovers, or their publication in Science.
2008: Craig Venter claims to invent artificial life. And by that he means he took the smallest genome and cut out some things which were unnecessary, and called the remainder man-made artificial life.
2010: Craig Venter claims to invent synthetic life. AFAIK he took the thing from 2008 and rebuilt it using custom nucleotide incorporation, which is a standard technology for a while now on a typically 1/1000 smaller scale.
So I am 99% sure he just redid something which was not artificial life in 2008, and redid it in a pain in the ass way only a large corporation could do, for the sake of claiming they created "synthetic life" and "heralded a new era"? How humble.
It seems funny they try to give off the image you can code a genome like you can write a code when they say they have gone from digital computer information to a functional genome.
Will this artificial organism here do anything itself besides model a large scale gene transplant?
What will the uses be?
What do you learn genetically from this approach?
What will you be able to do with a "artificial organism" better than with the many modified organisms using current approaches? I.e., if someone wants to convert greenhouse gases as this guy does, is there a reason why it would be better to have a chromosome painstakingly derived and created in a time consuming manner from a small parasitic bacteria-which has nothing to do with this proposed function-as opposed to the use of a number of existing bacteria which have can already be manipulated into catalyzing such reactions?
Just because he COPIED an existing genome and put it back into a cell in a roundabout way does not mean he has control to make synthetic organisms that do whatever he wants. I just see a preliminary work in the methods addition of very larger than normal genetic elements into cells. Which is good... but what kind of douche who deletes portions of an existing, small genome and claims to create artificial life and even more sickenly boastful things.
What I understand is that he wrote the genetic code from parts, he did not copy the whole thing, he created a new unique species from scratch. He basically added meta-information in it (website urls, decoding instructions for easter eggs) and injected this new code in an existing functional donor cell. Next division, the daughter cells are very close to the new species both in function and in structure. It is a man made design, it did not appear in a natural way.
What uses? Well he explained we can use them as cheap workers for chemical tasks, like cleaning stuff, creating oil, energy converters, maybe even food, disease inhibitors.... etc...
Er, it is difficult to understand "added meta-information in it (website urls, decoding instructions for easter eggs".
I read their paper and they used a modified genome which was 5/6 the Mycoplasma mycoides genome. How is that creating a unique species from scratch..plz.. ?
And what do any of your uses have to do with having a synthetically created ~5/6 Mycoplasma genome. "Creating oil" is a completely separate undertaking which has nothing to do with anything on the Mycoplasma genome.
The person above you posted something similar, Diesel synthesizing bacteria... It did not use genome transfer and it is very, very difficult to imagine how that could be useful.
On May 23 2010 11:49 Servolisk wrote: Such as what?
How do you get from this to designing bacteria doing w/e like converting greenhouse gases (in a new way)?
He still wants to create a minimal genome to use as a base for engineering other functions.
What is the point of having a minimal (Mycoplasma) genome if your goal is to engineer novel functions (plus the idea of a minimum genome needs context, and you need to know the majority of gene functions rather than their sequence to be useful as use as a platform IMO)? The is a separate challenge. I am not seeing any reason why this offers a more convenient system than various current systems. I would if, first, the function and role of every gene were known
[/B]
The point would be to have a minimal life form to start off with that doesn't have any extraneous functions or metabolic pathways to interfere with your design. If the future plan is to design an organism from the ground up, having an idea of the minimal sets of genes will be useful.
You could already delete hundreds of genes at once. This made no advances in that area.
That is not true. It would be very challenging to delete sets of random genes scattered across a genome. Having full genome control allows from much more sophisticated changes than what can be done with standard techniques.
As for adding... what is the goal? For example the greenhouse gas conversion proposal, people already make transgenic organisms to do that type of thing in the scale of ~10 genes (not greenhouse gases AFAIK but similar concepts). No one is going to take that seriously...to add a genome to do these type of jobs... because it would be equivalent at the very best and counterproductive in all likelihood... -_____-
I am just going by the example put forth in the OP. Is there some other example where it is useful to transplant a whole genome/huge number of genes which you have no idea what they do or how to control?
In the future we will have ideas of what the genes do and how to control them.
Ability to input a large sequence has been improved but that is quite preliminary. It took them many years to copy the genome from mycoplasma, put it back together, and then put it back inside. That just sounds like a large project rather than an improvement of technology. They had unlimited funding and a very large team and a large amount of time, how is that going to be a tool for other biologists?
The first human genome sequence cost billions of dollars, now it's only a few thousand dollars and the quality is better. In this work they synthesized a 1Mbp piece of DNA from scratch. The hope is that synthesis technology will improve in cost as it did for sequencing. Future biologists will be able to type out a very long sequence and have it made for them. What they use that sequence for will be up to them.
And that has nothing to do with an organism that has special or novel functionality.
And since the functions of cells he proposes to engineer are a separate project also possible using previously available modified cells I am not seeing what has been added ...
If all scientists were like him when people were able to transplant a pig organ to humans they called it a new species.
Altogether there seems to not be any new science that has been done here aside from the scale. It would be nice if there was but I have not been able to parse it out from the grandiose claims and sci-fi crossovers, or their publication in Science.
You're putting words in his mouth that he never said. He didn't make any grandiose claims in the publication and it explains very clearly what he accomplished with his previous work and how this is an improvement on that. He did say that he calls this a synthetic cell and he explains his rationale for doing so.
[QUOTE]On May 23 2010 14:04 ThunderChunky wrote: [QUOTE]On May 23 2010 13:10 Servolisk wrote: [QUOTE]On May 23 2010 12:11 ThunderChunky wrote: [QUOTE]On May 23 2010 11:49 Servolisk wrote: The point would be to have a minimal life form to start off with that doesn't have any extraneous functions or metabolic pathways to interfere with your design.[/QUOTE]
It is possible but it is doubtful that what is minimum for Mycoplasma (under whatever laboratory conditions they had used) is minimum in other contexts. There is a lot of lost beneficial functions in the unknown genes that are removed just because they were not essential to survival.
It is hard to imagine that when you do not know the function of most of these genes you can select which will be optimum as a backbone. Trying to make an optimal backbone is a more difficult task than trying to create designs in existing cells, and I doubt that is done in 50 years barring a completely independent break through. -_- E.g., this "synthetic life" does not have a normal nucleus and the majority of DNA regulating enzymes for the cell won't function properly if it is not in a nucleus and bound to histones.
There are more feasilble ways to handle the problem you mentioned.
[QUOTE] There are a variety of small and large scale gene silencing methods. If you wanted to delete a large amount of scattered genes which have no pattern then yes it would be hard. [QUOTE]
In the future we will have ideas of what the genes do and how to control them.[/QUOTE]
Maybe, but that is a very large task not on the horizon. [QUOTE] The first human genome sequence cost billions of dollars, now it's only a few thousand dollars and the quality is better. In this work they synthesized a 1Mbp piece of DNA from scratch. The hope is that synthesis technology will improve in cost as it did for sequencing. Future biologists will be able to type out a very long sequence and have it made for them. What they use that sequence for will be up to them.[/QUOTE]
It cost them 15 years and 40 million iirc. In their publication, the methods were standard. I did not see what they have done to improve things. In the genome sequencing case new technology and methods were developed. The publication would be the appropriate place to hear about it, so it seems there was not any innovation, just a end product without convincing uses.
[QUOTE] You're putting words in his mouth that he never said. He didn't make any grandiose claims in the publication and it explains very clearly what he accomplished with his previous work and how this is an improvement on that. He did say that he calls this a synthetic cell and he explains his rationale for doing so. [/QUOTE]
Yes, for the journal publication... Outside of that he has been busy heralding a new dawn for mankind? :o Did anyone notice the last dawn in 2008? -_- Let's see if any synthetic biologists who are working on the goals he is interested in actually use his development...
On May 23 2010 15:53 Servolisk wrote: It is possible but it is doubtful that what is minimum for Mycoplasma (under whatever laboratory conditions they had used) is minimum in other contexts. There is a lot of lost beneficial functions in the unknown genes that are removed just because they were not essential to survival.
There can be many minimal genomes and we will probably learn more from having many than having only one. It is a worthy goal to pursue for synthetic biologists who would like to be able to create life from scratch.
It is hard to imagine that when you do not know the function of most of these genes you can select which will be optimum as a backbone. Trying to make an optimal backbone is a more difficult task than trying to create designs in existing cells, and I doubt that is done in 50 years barring a completely independent break through. -_- E.g., this "synthetic life" does not have a normal nucleus and the majority of DNA regulating enzymes for the cell won't function properly if it is not in a nucleus and bound to histones.
There are more feasilble ways to handle the problem you mentioned.
The problem of making a minimal genome? The problem of reducing the cost to synthesize long pieces of DNA?
Bacteria do not have a nucleus and they do not have histones, they are much less complex than eukaryotic cells. In some model bacteria we know the functions of a lot of the genes and within out lifetimes will be able to understand all the gene regulation taking place in the cell.
Maybe, but that is a very large task not on the horizon.
Not for a lot of microbiologists.
It cost them 15 years and 40 million iirc. In their publication, the methods were standard. I did not see what they have done to improve things. In the genome sequencing case new technology and methods were developed. The publication would be the appropriate place to hear about it, so it seems there was not any innovation, just a end product without convincing uses.
A lot of that time and money was because of mistakes. They learned things a long the way and developed the technology. They developed new strategies for synthesizing long pieces of DNA. It is same thing that happened with sequencing technology during the genome project.
Yes, for the journal publication... Outside of that he has been busy heralding a new dawn for mankind? :o Did anyone notice the last dawn in 2008? -_- Let's see if any synthetic biologists who are working on the goals he is interested in actually use his development...
Where did he say he created a new species?
When the rest of the synthetic biologists catch up to him they will start to use his technology.
Basically we are a long way away from something actually useful. The engineering exercise was completed, that is all. All they did was create a copy of an existing "wild type" bacteria. They still don't understand how to alter the DNA to create something. What they're trying to develop is chromosomes for bacteria that could produce a useful vaccine perhaps, or maybe produce some type of fuel. When they manage to design a NEW bacterial cell that actually does something, that will be the major step.
On May 22 2010 02:05 icystorage wrote: man playing God. i hope man doesnt abuse this if it gets more advanced
Can't play the part of something that doesn't exist.
stop throwing the topic discussion into another religious tangent.
I think this is really interesting. This is just the beginning into this new field, but I'm not sure whether i'm supportive of it or not. There may be dangers to it that we can never be aware of until some time after use, could be bad..
The first computer was called the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer). The contract to make it was signed on June 5, 1943, and the first one manufactured was on February 14, 1946. It was designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert of the University of Pennsylvania. For the very earliest computer, see the related link to the Antikythera Mechanism. It was also made to help humans to be better at spelling
We are way less than a century past the first pathetic excuse for a computer....
The shit they are doing is absolutely impressive. Beyond impressive. We are decoding the program that writes life and beginning to tinker with it. So what if we are not the masters of it yet? Achieving what we have in the timescale we have is absolutely insane, I don't understand those who do not seem to appreciate that. I would rather hail this man as a prophet than attempt to downplay his and his teams successes.
On the subject of man playing god.... hell yes! Watching the 2008 talk made me feel proud to be part of the human race.
interesting how they created a cell out of synthetic DNA i dont find it too useful though since organs can already be grown to save lives but its another field that can be explored with almost unlimited possibilities.
This is quite rediculous ;/ wanna reproduce? Its called SEX its much easier, free, and much less risky, not to mention both parties have a great time ;p
On May 23 2010 21:46 ReachTheSky wrote: This is quite rediculous ;/ wanna reproduce? Its called SEX its much easier, free, and much less risky, not to mention both parties have a great time ;p
not all the time :O
i really cant comprehend this stuff but it seems really interesting. i have no idea what civilization will be like in the next century
On May 23 2010 21:13 Mykill wrote: interesting how they created a cell out of synthetic DNA i dont find it too useful though since organs can already be grown to save lives but its another field that can be explored with almost unlimited possibilities.
Contradict much?
From OP:
The researchers copied an existing bacterial genome. They sequenced its genetic code and then used "synthesis machines" to chemically construct a copy.
On May 23 2010 21:13 Mykill wrote: ^^Why are you talking about computers?
The researchers copied an existing bacterial genome. They sequenced its genetic code and then used "synthesis machines" to chemically construct a copy.
Actually, no...
The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell.
They copied a genome 3 years ago. Now they created a brand new genome, from existing parts, but the species they created does not exist in nature, and has been created in a single generation. That is the topic title.
The researchers copied an existing bacterial genome. They sequenced its genetic code and then used "synthesis machines" to chemically construct a copy.
Actually, no...
The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell.
They copied a genome 3 years ago. Now they created a brand new genome, from existing parts, but the species they created does not exist in nature, and has been created in a single generation. That is the topic title.
Actually, yes... I wasn't making a comment on this directly or saying that this was the most recent stage of development, I was pointing out that computers play a central role in these experiments, citing this as evidence.
In future make sure you read a post thoroughly before attempting to refute it and patronize the poster.
For anyone making comments along the lines of this :
On May 22 2010 02:19 Keniji wrote: (don't get me wrong, it's huge and pretty impressive but not as big of a milestone as Venter like to present it.)
I'll quote Venter's own description of this breakthrough from the video:
On May 23 2010 21:13 Mykill wrote: interesting how they created a cell out of synthetic DNA i dont find it too useful though since organs can already be grown to save lives but its another field that can be explored with almost unlimited possibilities.
^^Why are you talking about computers?
...Not impressive because we can do something completely different by other means?
On May 23 2010 20:21 Reason wrote: The first computer was called the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer). The contract to make it was signed on June 5, 1943, and the first one manufactured was on February 14, 1946. It was designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert of the University of Pennsylvania. For the very earliest computer, see the related link to the Antikythera Mechanism. It was also made to help humans to be better at spelling
We are way less than a century past the first pathetic excuse for a computer....
The shit they are doing is absolutely impressive. Beyond impressive. We are decoding the program that writes life and beginning to tinker with it. So what if we are not the masters of it yet? Achieving what we have in the timescale we have is absolutely insane, I don't understand those who do not seem to appreciate that. I would rather hail this man as a prophet than attempt to downplay his and his teams successes.
On the subject of man playing god.... hell yes! Watching the 2008 talk made me feel proud to be part of the human race.
I agree. But I like to call the Z3 the first computer
On May 23 2010 11:49 Servolisk wrote: Such as what?
How do you get from this to designing bacteria doing w/e like converting greenhouse gases (in a new way)?
He still wants to create a minimal genome to use as a base for engineering other functions.
What is the point of having a minimal (Mycoplasma) genome if your goal is to engineer novel functions (plus the idea of a minimum genome needs context, and you need to know the majority of gene functions rather than their sequence to be useful as use as a platform IMO)? The is a separate challenge. I am not seeing any reason why this offers a more convenient system than various current systems. I would if, first, the function and role of every gene were known
This will facilitate that because you can delete and add hundreds of genes at once. The techniques could also be used to design and synthesize whole chromosomes to complement an existing cell.
You could already delete hundreds of genes at once. This made no advances in that area.
As for adding... what is the goal? For example the greenhouse gas conversion proposal, people already make transgenic organisms to do that type of thing in the scale of ~10 genes (not greenhouse gases AFAIK but similar concepts). No one is going to take that seriously...to add a genome to do these type of jobs... because it would be equivalent at the very best and counterproductive in all likelihood... -_____-
I am just going by the example put forth in the OP. Is there some other example where it is useful to transplant a whole genome/huge number of genes which you have no idea what they do or how to control?
Obviously, there are still a lot of hurdles to overcome in the field, but converting a large digitized sequence to an actual one is now possible and conceivably will be a powerful tool for synthetic biologists.
Ability to input a large sequence has been improved but that is quite preliminary. It took them many years to copy the genome from mycoplasma, put it back together, and then put it back inside. That just sounds like a large project rather than an improvement of technology. They had unlimited funding and a very large team and a large amount of time, how is that going to be a tool for other biologists?
And that has nothing to do with an organism that has special or novel functionality.
And since the functions of cells he proposes to engineer are a separate project also possible using previously available modified cells I am not seeing what has been added ...
If all scientists were like him when people were able to transplant a pig organ to humans they called it a new species.
Altogether there seems to not be any new science that has been done here aside from the scale. It would be nice if there was but I have not been able to parse it out from the grandiose claims and sci-fi crossovers, or their publication in Science.
Why are you blabbering about science you clearly have no understanding of?
A minimal genome is advantageous in that it is far simpler to build off of and reliably predict what will develop without interference. Starting with a more advanced genome means that your introduced material has to compete with everything else that has been evolved for irrelevant purposes to your research. The cell might not even live because of these conflicts, which was one of the major hurdles overcome in this breakthrough - the majority of Ventur's press statement is devoted to describing the years of work and techniques involved in transforming their reduced ("synthetic") genome into a self-replicating cellular species. They literally hijacked a mycoplasma genitalium cell by forcing in their DNA and tossed out 100% of what was already there, a nuclear coup d'etat - research since 2008 was focused on getting their introduced genome to "boot up" in the cell.
That is why it is called synthetic "life" and not just genetically engineered life. They now have a species to base future work off of that is far simpler, more expressible, and better understood than anything else in nature.
On May 23 2010 15:53 Servolisk wrote: It is possible but it is doubtful that what is minimum for Mycoplasma (under whatever laboratory conditions they had used) is minimum in other contexts. There is a lot of lost beneficial functions in the unknown genes that are removed just because they were not essential to survival.
There can be many minimal genomes and we will probably learn more from having many than having only one. It is a worthy goal to pursue for synthetic biologists who would like to be able to create life from scratch.
It is hard to imagine that when you do not know the function of most of these genes you can select which will be optimum as a backbone. Trying to make an optimal backbone is a more difficult task than trying to create designs in existing cells, and I doubt that is done in 50 years barring a completely independent break through. -_- E.g., this "synthetic life" does not have a normal nucleus and the majority of DNA regulating enzymes for the cell won't function properly if it is not in a nucleus and bound to histones.
There are more feasilble ways to handle the problem you mentioned.
The problem of making a minimal genome? The problem of reducing the cost to synthesize long pieces of DNA?
Do you know of some cost reduction they have done which makes this a technique which is practical? All I have seen are standard techniques, in a painstaking form.
If you had some project for synthetic biology, why would you want to transplant an entire genome rather than the specific genes for the task. Wouldn't you want to modify a bacteria which is already suited for the task and can be modified the way current genetically modified organisms are? That is an immensely easier job.
Maybe, but that is a very large task not on the horizon.
Not for a lot of microbiologists.
To understand all of the unknown genes? In what organism is that close? It is a very difficult task for the genes you cannot understand by knockout/overexpression and other typical methods.
It cost them 15 years and 40 million iirc. In their publication, the methods were standard. I did not see what they have done to improve things. In the genome sequencing case new technology and methods were developed. The publication would be the appropriate place to hear about it, so it seems there was not any innovation, just a end product without convincing uses.
A lot of that time and money was because of mistakes. They learned things a long the way and developed the technology. They developed new strategies for synthesizing long pieces of DNA. It is same thing that happened with sequencing technology during the genome project.
What was the new technology? It was not explained in the Science publication. Everything they did was achievable with preexisting techniques, and it is not surprising that given a long amount of time someone could do that with current approaches.
On May 24 2010 07:27 Servolisk wrote: Do you know of some cost reduction they have done which makes this a technique which is practical? All I have seen are standard techniques, in a painstaking form.
There were no standard techniques for synthesizing such large pieces of DNA before they started this work. This is the first time it has been done. Now the bar has been set so future improvements can potentially reduce the cost.
If you had some project for synthetic biology, why would you want to transplant an entire genome rather than the specific genes for the task. Wouldn't you want to modify a bacteria which is already suited for the task and can be modified the way current genetically modified organisms are? That is an immensely easier job.
It depends on what the goal. Right now the tools for synthetic biology are still being built. Yes, standard genetic engineering techniques are useful for some tasks, but the future of synthetic biology is being able to create a cell from the ground up built for a specific task. Venter is pioneering the field and making way for future scientists to follow.
To understand all of the unknown genes? In what organism is that close? It is a very difficult task for the genes you cannot understand by knockout/overexpression and other typical methods.
We are close to understanding how all genes are regulated in E. coli, that doesn't tell us what they all do. For a minimal genome the task will be easier. We do need to know what all the genes do, we just need to know what most of the essential ones do. But the goal of understanding what all the genes do is something the field of microbiology is pursuing today.
What was the new technology? It was not explained in the Science publication. Everything they did was achievable with preexisting techniques, and it is not surprising that given a long amount of time someone could do that with current approaches.
From the article: "Several hurdles were overcome in transplanting and expressing a chemically synthesized chromosome in a recipient cell. We needed to improve methods for extracting intact chromosomes from yeast. We also needed to learn how to transplant these genomes into a recipient bacterial cell to establish a cell controlled only by a synthetic genome."
As far as synthesizing long pieces of DNA, that was detailed in the 2008 article. There were no preexisting techniques for doing such a task before hand.
I was going to ignore this because it was all based on very weak premises that have not been the least bit supported.
After all, Venter is only boasting to people who have no molecular biology background. I thought it is better to shake my head, because I thought this was a ego-inflating move, or a move to attract funding for their institute... however...
This will be a key part of Venter's second attempt to patent the entire field of "synthetic biology", and genetic engineering.
Fortunately, the first time he tried that, his ridiculously broad and baseless attempt to do the same thing failed. This time he has gone on a prior propaganda campaign and deluded non-scientists.
"I hope very much these patents won't be accepted because they would bring genetic engineering under the control of the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI). They would have a monopoly on a whole range of techniques."
In summary, they have an odd spectacle with no uses, which made no technological advances, and has unestablished, vague conceptual connections to an entire field, and also a huge press campaign targeted to non-scientists for the goal of patents, which if awarded, would severely, severely halt progress. For example, the post earlier about using microbes to make fuel, that use would not be allowed because of infringement.
Venter, who was involved in the human genome project, tried to patent the gene information they played a part in finding. It failed, but if it had succeeded, it is obvious there would have been very little biological research progress since that happened.
It is a scary thought to imagine this ignorant display is not harmless after all but could actually become a major obstacle to scientific progress.
Last week, bio-enterpreneur icon Craig Venter burst into the limelight yet again by announcing his "synthetic organism." The work duly appeared in Science and the predictable shouting ensued, from fears that humans are "playing God" to hails of "artificial life".
Several important issues got lost in the din. Let's leave the obvious potential objections aside – after all, humans started futzing the moment their frontal cortex became prominent and the consequences of this, intended and not, have decisively affected earth and all life on it. Instead, let's examine the clothes of this emperor closer up. To stick with the metaphor, Venter's latest is like exactly reproducing a large cloak onto a new piece of fabric identical to that of the original. It's not like creating a new garment or even cutting and pasting from previous garments to make a quilt, crazy or otherwise.
What Venter really announced was that a team under his direction inserted a chemically synthesized genome into Mycoplasma and succeeded in getting the resulting bacterium to propagate.
The Venter work is not a discovery, let alone a paradigm shift. It's a technological advance and even then not of technique but only of scale. The experiment is merely an extension of a well-known principle that every biology lab uses routinely: namely, that bacterial genomes can be modified almost at will (barring a few indispensable regions) and in such ways as to turn the bacteria into potent mini-factories for specific proteins. The Venter bacterium is actually pedestrian because it carries an exact duplicate of a naturally occurring genome. Its only artificial aspects are the molecular "flags" that its makers included in the synthesis to mark the artificial genome for further tracking – standard operating procedure in all such modifications.
Most decidedly, this is not artificial life (though I hasten to add that there is nothing mystical or long-term unknowable about components of living cells and organisms, including the eventual ability to tweak them). To propagate the synthesized chromosome, the Venter team used a bacterium whose endogenous DNA had been removed but was otherwise intact. This means that they used existing natural components to do the real task of propagation – the entire structure and machinery of the host cell. This makes the endeavor even less groundbreaking than injecting genetic material into a mammalian egg or stem cell (as was done to produce Dolly the sheep with far less advanced technology).
Lastly, this does not bring us a single step closer to engineering customized functions, from vacuuming up oil spills, excess CO2 or methane to producing chlorophyll or unique drugs. Creating a synthetic cell totally de novo is theoretically doable but far below the event horizon. Altering existing genes and/or creating ones for novel functions is more distant still, because making the coding part is only a small part of the task - if we figure out how to get them to encode it, for starters. Persuading them to express at the right place and time is equally crucial. So is coaxing them to work in eukaryotic cells which, unlike easy-going bacteria, have carefully guarded compartments – the nucleus in particular.
In short, the Venter endeavor was expensive, glitzy – and banal. My advice to bioethicists is to save their energy for truly fearsome items, such as recombinant bacteria or viruses that may arise from species pushed together by abrupt dislocations of habitats. I've done far more "dangerous" work in my near-constant cloning than this sheep attempting to pass as a wolf… nay, a lion.
It is ironic that not only is it not a breakthrough it is anti-progressive when you account for their use of it to try to gain a monopoly on genetic engineering techniques. One can only hope that the ridiculousness will fail once gain, but I worry if the judge is as naive as the media who presented this as a breakthrough he could be deluded.
EPT
nooo
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