Posted on 05/20/2010 10:51:45 AM PDT by Steelfish
'Artificial Life' Breakthrough Announced By Scientists Thursday, 20 May 2010
The synthetic cell looks identical to the "wild type" Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first synthetic living cell. 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. 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 in Maryland and California.
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.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
This will end well....
I hate it when synthetic DNA starts controlling my cells, it always feels weird.
Evidently, these fellows used pre-existing bits of DNA; so much for their "synthesis"...
Trying to be like God, Satan tried it and look what happened to him!
Frankenstein never had it so good.
Great.
Designer diseases.
They have to bring global warming in to everything, don't they?
Can they Manufacture some sythetic Spines for the GOP?
Nah, this is about the equivalent of putting a new BIOS in complete motherboard. Didn’t replicate the I/O processors or the network.
“Get your own dirt.”
Ah heck, they are ONLY able to program cells by inserting their own uniquely coded DNA based on pre-existing bits of DNA.
What hacks *rolls-eyes*
The content of the article doesn’t support the claim of the headline.
Just read this from another newspaper too and seems like over zealous hype. They have not created new life, they had to use an already ‘alive’ bacterium to put their new DNA into. But the media so eager to show that life could happen by accident will jump at any straw.
It will end well because science is so “smart” - even smarter than God. We all know this cause Bammy told us so.../s/
The content of the article doesn’t support the claim of the headline.”
the headline was organic; the article was synthetic...
Its always a laugh when some scientist says we made life our of inorganic chemicals and such stupid things....They always have to start out with something already here...Make something come out of an empty beaker or jar and then you have something to crow about..
“hope eventually to design bacterial cells that will produce medicines and fuels and even absorb greenhouse gases.”
We already have organisms that do that. They are called “plants.” Just how dim is the Beeb audience anyway?
If they used C/C++ I'm going to laugh my ass off when they realize there's a memory-leak...
;)
Sure, they did that, but the point is that that's all they did. They didn't "create life" as the headline misleadingly says.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.