Synthetic Life Has Been Streamlined And Is Ready To Be Put To Work - Newsy

Transcript:
In 2010, researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced they'd created a bacteria that runs entirely on lab-made DNA — the world's first synthetic life-form. More than five years later later, they've streamlined, stripped down and organized that life-form, and are ready to turn it into a tiny factory.
The team's 2010 announcement made headlines around the world.
"This is the first self-replicating species that we've had on the planet whose parent is a computer," Venter said.
But creating a life-form entirely programmed by humans was also seen as kind of scary.
"This has enormous promise and enormous peril," said Paul Wolpe of the Emory Center for Ethics.
"This story reminds me of 'Jurassic Park,' when all the dinosaurs got out and ran amok," Fox News's Jenna Lee said.
But the process of making DNA in a lab has only gotten easier since then. Some of those same researchers now sell DNA-printing machines.
The plan, though, has always been to strip down a genome to its bare essentials, cutting out every piece of unnecessary DNA. That would serve two goals: helping scientists learn more about how life works and taking the first steps to build custom bacteria.
On the first point, it turns out we don't know life nearly as well as we thought. A viable life-form needs at least 473 genes. That's way higher than scientists predicted, and they still aren't sure what a third of those genes do.
The team says even if this research only shows us how little we know, it would still be worth it. But they don't intend to stop there. They want to put this streamlined life-form to work.
Bacteria are great at taking one compound and turning it into another. They're little chemistry labs, and many scientists believe using carefully built bacteria can solve a lot of the world's problems.
Bacteria can turn switch grass into biofuel as easily as brewing beer. They create all kinds of medicines and can even generate electricity.
But a stripped-down life-form can do all of that with a lot of advantages: You can make sure none of your ingredients go to waste, control mutations and, most importantly, design the genome from scratch to do exactly what you want.
The researchers also said their stripped-down bacteria can give scientists clues to the origins of life. It apparently behaves how scientists think some of the world's first life-forms did.

Sources:
J. Craig Venter Institute
Science
TED Conferences
ABC
Fox News
Synthetic Genomics, Inc.
Getty Images
U.S. Department of Energy
National Science Foundation
Getty Images
Getty Images

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[hopolo]

The bacteria is the simplest lifeform to be used as guinea pigs as genetic scaffolding for research and development of pollution-eaters. Yet, more complex organisms designed on computers will emerge, such as one with a perfectly healthy human genome designed to be disease-free and repair damage due to aging. Once we have determined the functions of each gene and combine that with supercomputing to determine most viable genetic sequence, we can have custom specimens.

[covenantsoul]

Calling this cell a "creation" or even "synthetic" is an overstatement. It's like taking an animal and removing as many of its parts and organs as possible without killing it and crediting yourself with creating something. The product is not a creation; it's merely a crippling of the natural cell. If you want to create a cell from scratch, don't start with cells – start with molecules and build your own cell from the ground up. But I predict that such a cell created from scratch will never be able to function, because humanity cannot give it the spark of life. Only natural pro-creation can result in new life.

[JabberCT]

If I was one of them scientists, I would put on a crazed look and shout, ITS

[traumainduced]

This is an abomination this world is done

[imthinkinwacky]

It's only a matter of time until we have real life replicants from Blade Runner.

[juanvelez]

What could go wrong? Scientists have ethics committees now so they always make good decisions. lol. Have faith in your Contemporary savior, the "scientific community".

[Takeithome]

Wait until this shit gets into the wrong hands!!

[marknasia]

Oh great here come designer babies, and long life organ donor clones, “you have been chosen, to go to the island....”

[rayshaunjustice]

what are they planning on doing with it

[tegatobu]

Science vs Religion





Which shall kill us off first?

[luke]

Here comes the institute's synths... Better get Vault Tec set up...

[michelderon]

YOU ARE LOONATICS! and IF my family or kids are ever affected by this I HOLD EVERYONE OF YOU PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE!!!! Best regards ! Michel

[namemcnamey]

This is amazing and can be used to do great things but could also be used for bads stuff

[openyoureyes]

life is made up of death life-less things and in time will return to that state 💩👶💩

[ninjar]

Watched it and immediately knew what the comments from "them" would be. 😏 crazies

[killiancraftofcraftyworks]

speed up its evolution! i want to see fish forming!

[FakeClouds]

yeah !  and nothing could go wrong with this tech?!!WTF! playing God is not a direction people should want to go for. like I said what could go wrong when the moment arives that anybody could create and print out their own little mini t-rex @ home.   - _ -

[KeyBrute]

3rd of it is called "Soul" its actions. jk

[guccimane]

He didnt create life. He copied from something that has already existed. He created nothing

[ahmada]

tho one and only god created you and the world around you, including the tools and materials you used to make these cells