Free Republic

The White House on Thursday said the controversial field of synthetic biology, or manipulating the DNA of organisms to forge new life forms, poses limited risks and should be allowed to proceed. An expert panel convened by President Barack Obama advised vigilance and self-regulation as scientists seeks ways to create new organisms that could spark useful innovations in clean energy, pollution control and medicine. The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues "concluded that synthetic biology is capable of significant but limited achievements posing limited risks," it said in its first report. "Future developments may raise further objections, but...

IT'S ALIVE!!!Visions of Dr. Frankenstein creating his monster came to mind with the news yesterday that artificial life had been "created" in the laboratory. Unfortunately, for the mainstream media hypemeisters, a scientist has tossed cold water upon that bold assertion. And who was the killjoy scientist raining on the MSM parade hyping this event? Why, it was the scientist, J. Craig Ventner himself, who was being credited in the media for being a latter day Dr. Frankenstein as you can see in this San Diego Union-Tribune report: J. Craig Venter, the La Jolla biologist who played a key role in...

'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...

WASHINGTON: Scientists have grown a human ovary in the laboratory from slivers of ovarian tissue which has been able to turn an immature human egg into a mature one, a breakthrough they claim may soon offer women cancer patients more chances of conceiving. To create the artificial ovary, a team at the Women and Infants Hospital in Rhode Island started with theca cells, which form the outer coating of the follicle which holds the egg and produces a precursor to oestrogen. The scientists got their cells from ovaries that had been removed from young women for other reasons. A gel...

US scientists have taken a major step toward creating the first ever artificial life form by synthetically reproducing the DNA of a bacteria, according to a study published Thursday. The move, which comes after five years of research, is seen as the penultimate stage in the endeavour to create an artificial life form based entirely on a man-made DNA genome -- something which has tantalised scientists and sci-fi writers for years. "Through dedicated teamwork we have shown that building large genomes is now feasible and scalable so that important applications such as biofuels can be developed," said Hamilton Smith, from...

Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth. The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes. It is certain to provoke heated debate about the ethics of creating new species and could unlock the door to new...

LONDON: Controversial US scientist Craig Venter claimed to have constructed a synthetic chromosome using chemicals made from the laboratory, a step towards the creation of first new artificial life form on Earth. "This landmark will be a very important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before," sources reported on Saturday, quoting Venter as saying. He is expected to announce the discovery -- a feat of bio-engineering never previously achieved -- within weeks. According...

WASHINGTON — Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer. Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life." "It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways — in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict." That first cell of synthetic...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer. Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life." "It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways—in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."

Scientists around world in race to create artificial life20 Aug 2007, 0647 hrs IST,AP   WASHINGTON: Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer. Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life." "It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways,...

Scientists could create the first new form of artificial life within months after a landmark breakthrough in which they turned one bacteria into another. Craig Venter likened the process to 'changing a Macintosh computer into a PC by inserting a new piece of software' In a development that has triggered unease and excitement in equal measure, scientists took the whole genetic makeup - or genome - of a bacterial cell and transplanted it into a closely related species. This then began to grow and multiply in the lab, turning into the first species in the process. The team that carried...

Mark Bedau ’76 and Norman Packard ’77 used to stay up late nights at Reed pondering the nature of life. What makes organisms alive? Is there a knowable organizing principle behind living cells? Can life be broken down into its constituent parts? Thirty years later, Bedau and Packard are on a quest for answers. Surrounded by powerful computers and sophisticated equipment in a high-tech industrial park on the outskirts of Venice, Italy—and bankrolled with millions of euros—they are trying to produce actual cells. The two Reedies are part of a long-shot entry in the race to create artificial life. Bedau,...

Work on the world's first human-made species is well under way at a research complex in Rockville, Md., and scientists in Canada have been quietly conducting experiments to help bring such a creature to life. Robert Holt, head of sequencing for the Genome Science Centre at the University of British Columbia, is leading efforts at his Vancouver lab to play a key role in the production of the first synthetic life form -- a microbe made from scratch. The project is being spearheaded by U.S. scientist Craig Venter, who gained fame in his former job as head of Celera Genomics,...

<p>It is the stuff of science fiction and bioethical debates: The creation of artificial life. Up until now, it's largely been just that.</p> <p>But an important technical bridge towards the creation of such life was crossed Thursday when genomics pioneer Craig Venter announced that his research group created an artificial virus based on a real one in just two weeks' time.</p>