New Life created: Brave New World?

[silverfox]

It's just been announced that American Scientists have made an amazing Nobel Prize Winning breakthrough by creating new, synthetic life.

The cell has been designed by computer, strand by DNA strand. It's a marriage between biology and Information Technology. It's opened a new frontier in science with many potential applications and benefits in medicine. Many dangers also, with the worry of mutation.

Man has now become god-like. Has a terrible beauty been born?

[HAL9000]

silverfox Wrote:

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> It's just been announced that American Scientists have made ... synthetic life.

Actually, not quite. There is a fair bit of hype in this story.

Venter's group has synthesised an existing genome. It only animates when placed in a living cell. That is not synthetic or artificial 'life' proper.

See 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

[silverfox]

I don't pretend to understand the process of how this came about but it seems it has divided millions of times now and with each division has replicated the synthetic DNA. By any measure artificial life has been created for the first time.

The new frontier that has now opened up is being described as a third industrial revolution with new life forms that probably couldn't have evolved naturally about to be created to capture carbon, provide alternative energy sources and so on. It is a momentus breakthrough.

The worry is, are the scientists clever enough to control what they're about to unleash?

[????]

I'm not a scientist Hal but isn't the point that although you need a pre-existing cell as a host you can theoretically grow a 'created life' in there (In this case bacteria)

[Mick Mac]

Hal achieved this years ago. He is suitably unimpressed.

[HAL9000]

One of my companies has been manufacturing strands of synthetic DNA since 1998. The process of inserting synthetic gene sequences (as plasmids) into living single cell organisms has been around for at least two decades - it's called recombinant DNA or gene splicing.

The only "new" thing in this story is that Venter's group has synthesised a single cell organism's entire genome (as one or more plasmids) and inserted it into the enucleated cell of a different organism.

Not surprisingly, the new host cell was thus reprogrammed to behave like the original organism whose DNA was synthesised.

Don't get too carried away - this is not the creation of life ab initio. It's just another small step forward in the long established field of bioengineering.

[Ladymuck]

@ HAL9000

OK, I am not a scientist either. How different is this to genetic (bio) engineering? I don't understand. Certainly what immediately strikes me is that we are looking at similar concerns here (e.g. ethical, environmental etc. etc.). So a (short) and preferably jargon free explanation would be really helpful (to me). Thanks in advance.

[HAL9000]

Craig Venter is a brilliant scientist and self-publicist who has made regular 'artificial life' claims for several years now. What surprises me is how the media falls for essentially the same techno-hype on every occasion.

Venter's group has made a small albeit significant advance in genetic engineering: it has synthesised and spliced together one or more DNA plasmids large enough to contain the complete genome of the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides, which is around one million base-pairs long.

The breakthrough is in the length of the assembled DNA strands or plasmids - everything else is well-established biotechnology.

The synthesised DNA was then implanted into an enucleated cell of the very closely related Mycoplasma capricolum bacterium, which was able to replicate - but scientists have been able to do that part for many years using natural DNA. Natural and synthetic DNA strands are chemically and biologically indistinguishable.

All in all, yesterday?s announcement was a storm in a Petri dish.

Incidentally, DNA is only the code of life ? it is not life itself. DNA is like the simple dot code recorded on a DVD ? one still needs the highly sophisticated and complex manufacturing, recording, playing and viewing machinery in order to do anything useful with it. The live host cell in this scenario provides all of that machinery.

[silverfox]

Hal9000, if scientists managed to recover Mammoth DNA from the permafrost of Siberia and implanted into an enucleated cell of an elephant which then divided and grew, what would the resultant animal be called?

[Ladymuck]

Thank you HAL9000 (somehow I knew you'd know).

So basically, the only differences are (a) synthetic (as opposed to purely natural DNA) has been used and (b) the assembled DNA strands are greater in length?

In which case many of the arguments/concerns for and against this technology are similar to the ones for standard biotechnology? Except now there is the element of the "synthetic" to be considered?

[Jeremy]

I'm a great believer in biological and genetic engineering. I think the potential benefits could be huge, and it frustrates me enormously when doom mongers and the religious right-wing try to stand in the way.

[Brendan]

Yeah I also don?t get the knee jerk, natural good, synthetic bad bullshit. Ebola is natural.

Also at which point does something go from being natural to being synthetic? If I take 2 hydrogen atoms and artificialy force them to bond to an oxygen atom does it make water synthetic?

[silverfox]

Jeremy and Brendan, I think you're both confusing being obstructive with those urging we proceed with caution.

Up until this breakthrough, every cell, bacterium and virus on this planet has been the result of billions of years of (natural) evolution, where each has competed and fought off competition from others to get a foothold within a particular environment, from underground caves, hot deserts, frozen wastes to extremophiles around underwater volcanic vents and so on.

What is now possible is the creation of new forms of life for good or ill. The benefits are potentially incalculable. But those doing the creating will be commercial bodies seeking a profit. Nobody knows what will happen if artificial life starts to mix with natural life. Where are the safeguards to prevent greedy companies unleashing lifeforms with potentially devastating consequences?

Any rational person would be concerned and not just the religious right.

[Ladymuck]

Indeed Silverfox.

I am neither religious nor right.

However my "concern" (as for the GM debate) would be that such technology would need to be tested for many years to ascertain its safety - by which time it may be too late. This doesn't constitute doom-mongering (in my humble opinion).

[HAL9000]

silverfox Wrote:

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> Hal9000, if scientists managed to recover Mammoth DNA ...

> and implanted into an enucleated cell of an elephant which then

> divided and grew, what would the resultant animal be called?

Mambo!

Seriously, if this were done using a pluripotent elephant cell to produce a dolly-the-sheep-type embryo (a highly unlikely outcome, in my view): the resulting animal would best be described as a specific intra-cellular chimera between Mammoth and Elephant biochemistries whose exact composition depends on the procedures used to create it. This particular example should look and behave like a Mammoth.

[HAL9000]

Ladymuck Wrote:

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> So basically, ... ?

Well done, you've summarised the issues precisely.

[silverfox]

Interesting article on the BBC website about the use of patents hampering scientific research and hindering many potential benefits. An interesting counter balance to Jeremy's view above.

Synthetic life patents 'damaging'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10150685.stm

[Jeremy]

This argument has been raging on for years (as a matter of fact I was working in patent publishing 10 years ago, when the human genome was first sequenced). I've always thought that this was abuse of the patent system... patents should protect innovation and ideas, not discoveries.

But on the other hand - to play devil's advocate - if companies didn't have the incentive of locking in ownership of their work, would this kind of project by financially viable for them?

It's an interesting subject, but not sure it counters my previous post...

[HAL9000]

It was the same Craig Venter who was trying to patent the Human Genome and offer a pay-to-view service back then.

I doubt whether he would have been able to raise so many millions in research funds if the prospect of licensing royalties hadn't motivated his investors, though.

[SteveT]

silverfox wrote:-

Hal9000, if scientists managed to recover Mammoth DNA from the permafrost of Siberia and implanted into an enucleated cell of an elephant which then divided and grew, what would the resultant animal be called?

Polar Jumbo? A Chillyphant?

This reminds me of the time when there was a big hoo-har creating nuclear fission in a tea-cup that turned out to be a big yawn.

Until this new life form can be inserted into my computer memory,

so that it can grow to the size necessary for one's needs rather than having to buy new,

then it is all less useful than bullcrap to anyone with a compost heap.

[HAL9000]

Call to regulate artificial life

[silverfox]

Interesting HAL9000. Having read more on the subject I've now come to the conclusion that this issue has been over-hyped and the title of this thread is misleading (as you previously suggested). Craig Venter has not created new life - he's modified an pre-existing cell.

Still, this has opened up a whole new field, for good and bad.