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GM Organism Produces New Amino Acid

Posted by michael on from the one-for-the-road dept.

blamanj writes "Scientists led by Scripps Research Institute chemistry professor Dr. Peter Schultz have engineered a version of the E. coli bacteria that can produce an amino acid not found in nature. Story at the Environment News Service and Science Daily."

1 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. Safeguard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
    Two conflicting sentences in the article:

    Essentially, this bacterium can be added to a minimal media (salts and a basic carbon source) and it's able to do the rest.

    We crippled the organism's ability to biosynthesize leucine [one of the 20 essential amino acids] to avoid any risk that the organism could propagate outside a controlled lab setting ...

    So which is it? Minimal media or media supplemented with leucine? If those are the *safeguards*, then that's pretty weak. Surviving on minimal media means that only a carbon source (abundant) and salts (abundant) are necessary for growth/reproduction. If the bug is a leucine auxotroph then it's not much better, as there is plenty of leucine around "in the wild" to supplement the deficiency.