Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the this-is-just-swell dept.
jrrl writes "USAToday is reporting that Craig Venter's research group has synthesized a virus from scratch and that it "became bioactive" (started reproducing). Particularly interesting is that it only took them two weeks to build, rather than several years that previous attempts had taken."
More than a year ago live polio virus was
constructed from component DNA. This is
not a "artificial" virus but a working copy
of phi X bacteriophage. Note that this is
an infringement of God's copyrights and
patents and trade secrets!
(from NY times, July 2002: Scientists construct virus from scratch for first time, synthesizing live polio virus from chemicals and publicly available genetic information; work was conducted by scientists at State University of New York at Stony Brook and financed by Defense Department as part of program to develop biowarfare) countermeasures... )
Not the first time
by
Brahmastra
·
· Score: 3, Informative
This story indicates that it was done more than a year ago.
Horsefeathers. Matter is not the essence of a thing. Form and function usually (but not always) are. Transformation into another form may not destroy the mass but it most certainly destroys the thing that existed before.
--
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
What they did, why it is hard
by
sam_handelman
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The human genome (which is DNA), contained in each of your cells, contains the instructions needed to make a cell (much like a computer program.)
However, in order to use these instructions to make a cell, you need a cell of the same kind to read them.
Analogy: You have a computer program that tells you how to manufacture computers but this doesn't do any good unless you already have a computer OF THE SAME KIND on which to execute it.
So, even if I assemble an entire human genome, I can't use it to make a person unless I already have a human cell. Kapish?
A VIRUS, which is what was made here, is NOT A CELL. It is a parasitic piece of DNA that hijacks an existing cell and contains the instructions to make viruses. The DNA that the virus contains is, in the best case, sufficient to hijack the cell all by itself, and convert the cell into a factory for making viruses. Viruses CANNOT make more viruses by themselves. The similarity to a computer virus, I assume, is obvious.
So, if you can make VIRAL DNA, this will be sufficient to make the virus, if you have cells that the virus can infect.
Even making the genome of a virus is very difficult. The "commercially available" DNA mentioned in the article is made chemically. DNA is made up of a chain of monomers; each monomer has a 5' end and a 3' end that can attach together to form a chain. In order to add monomer n+1 to a growing chain, this is what you do (description meant to be accessible to people who don't know a lot of chemistry):...(Monomer n-1) 3' - 5' (Monomer n) 3'(BLOCKED)
-> **add reagent to unblock**
-> wash...(Monomer n) 3'
-> add 5' (Monomer n) 3' {BLOCKED}
-> add reagent to attach 5' and 3' together...(Monomer n) 3' - 5' (Monomer n+1) 3' {BLOCKED} and repeat for Monomer n+2. Recursion is good.
Now, this is done in parallel in thousands of molecules of DNA (the 5' end of each molecule is fixed to a plate.)
Every time you add the reagent to remove the BLOCKS, it has a percentage chance, which can be very small, of failing.
So, for example, if, on one paritcular molecule, it fails at position 10, then instead of: ACGTACGTACGT you will get, ACGTACGTAGT.
DNA that makes proteins has something called a "reading frame", consisting of codons which are three monomers long. If you shift the reading frame over by 1 monomer, it completely changes the meaning of the message.
So, a single nucleotide deletion, which I describe above, is disastrous - the synthetic DNA becomes useless.
Even if the chance of failing to remove a block is small - typically about 0.1% - if your DNA molecule is thousands of bases long, the chance of successfully adding every base to any individual molecule is slight.
Of course, you can make two different 100-base long molecules by the above technique and then ligate them together (recursion by splitting the task in half) which is, I believe, what's been done here. This has technical difficulties of it's own, of course, but with refinements it woud allow you to make useful DNA of length n*2^m instead of DNA of length n.
This is a frightening prospect because it would allow you to make ebola "from scratch", or just from the the string of letters that represent the genome (which is so short I could write it out by hand on a stack of cocktail napkins.) We're not to that point yet but it is a scary possibility.
-- The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Not the first, and is identical to a natural virus
by
Noren
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The first reproducing artificial virus was the Polio virus by Wimmer and colleagues.
Ventner's new virus is artificial in the sense that it was created from chemicals- but it is identical to a known natural virus.
Venter's team cobbled together the virus, called phi-X174, following its published genetic sequence.
Viruses, not virii
by
koreth
·
· Score: 4, Informative
This will probably get modded down as flamebait, but someone has to say it: the plural of "virus" is "viruses." It is not "virii" because that isn't an actual English word.
Re:Viruses, not virii
by
xinot
·
· Score: 3, Informative
No, not flamebait. Just ignorance on your part. You misunderstand how the english language grows and expands. It's not like the French or German or Italian which have their own institutions to determine the specifics of the words that are allowed. With English we expand the vocabulary as it is used. See email. Or many other words. You may not like virii, but if enough people use it, it is a word.
Deal with it.
Re:Should we really be doing things like this?
by
diersing
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Yesterday, NPR's All Things Considered did a nice piece on it, you can
download it here
Re:Viruses and weapons
by
mesocyclone
·
· Score: 3, Informative
In the same light, the US has never created a weapon it has not used.
This is absolutely not true. The US created many chemical weapons which it did not use (I don't know if we used chem weapons in WW-I, but we enver used them since then).
The US has NEVER used biological weapons (even the recorded use of smallpox against Indians was done by the British before the American Revolution).
Slashdot Mirror
More than a year ago live polio virus was constructed from component DNA. This is not a "artificial" virus but a working copy of phi X bacteriophage. Note that this is an infringement of God's copyrights and patents and trade secrets!
... )
(from NY times, July 2002: Scientists construct virus from scratch for first time, synthesizing live polio virus from chemicals and publicly available genetic information; work was conducted by scientists at State University of New York at Stony Brook and financed by Defense Department as part of program to develop biowarfare) countermeasures
This story indicates that it was done more than a year ago.
Horsefeathers. Matter is not the essence of a thing. Form and function usually (but not always) are. Transformation into another form may not destroy the mass but it most certainly destroys the thing that existed before.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
The human genome (which is DNA), contained in each of your cells, contains the instructions needed to make a cell (much like a computer program.)
...(Monomer n-1) 3' - 5' (Monomer n) 3'(BLOCKED) ...(Monomer n) 3' ...(Monomer n) 3' - 5' (Monomer n+1) 3' {BLOCKED}
However, in order to use these instructions to make a cell, you need a cell of the same kind to read them.
Analogy: You have a computer program that tells you how to manufacture computers but this doesn't do any good unless you already have a computer OF THE SAME KIND on which to execute it.
So, even if I assemble an entire human genome, I can't use it to make a person unless I already have a human cell. Kapish?
A VIRUS, which is what was made here, is NOT A CELL. It is a parasitic piece of DNA that hijacks an existing cell and contains the instructions to make viruses. The DNA that the virus contains is, in the best case, sufficient to hijack the cell all by itself, and convert the cell into a factory for making viruses. Viruses CANNOT make more viruses by themselves. The similarity to a computer virus, I assume, is obvious.
So, if you can make VIRAL DNA, this will be sufficient to make the virus, if you have cells that the virus can infect.
Even making the genome of a virus is very difficult. The "commercially available" DNA mentioned in the article is made chemically. DNA is made up of a chain of monomers; each monomer has a 5' end and a 3' end that can attach together to form a chain. In order to add monomer n+1 to a growing chain, this is what you do (description meant to be accessible to people who don't know a lot of chemistry):
-> **add reagent to unblock**
-> wash
-> add 5' (Monomer n) 3' {BLOCKED}
-> add reagent to attach 5' and 3' together
and repeat for Monomer n+2. Recursion is good.
Now, this is done in parallel in thousands of molecules of DNA (the 5' end of each molecule is fixed to a plate.)
Every time you add the reagent to remove the BLOCKS, it has a percentage chance, which can be very small, of failing.
So, for example, if, on one paritcular molecule, it fails at position 10, then instead of:
ACGTACGTACGT
you will get,
ACGTACGTAGT.
DNA that makes proteins has something called a "reading frame", consisting of codons which are three monomers long. If you shift the reading frame over by 1 monomer, it completely changes the meaning of the message.
So, a single nucleotide deletion, which I describe above, is disastrous - the synthetic DNA becomes useless.
Even if the chance of failing to remove a block is small - typically about 0.1% - if your DNA molecule is thousands of bases long, the chance of successfully adding every base to any individual molecule is slight.
Of course, you can make two different 100-base long molecules by the above technique and then ligate them together (recursion by splitting the task in half) which is, I believe, what's been done here. This has technical difficulties of it's own, of course, but with refinements it woud allow you to make useful DNA of length n*2^m instead of DNA of length n.
This is a frightening prospect because it would allow you to make ebola "from scratch", or just from the the string of letters that represent the genome (which is so short I could write it out by hand on a stack of cocktail napkins.) We're not to that point yet but it is a scary possibility.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Ventner's new virus is artificial in the sense that it was created from chemicals- but it is identical to a known natural virus.
This will probably get modded down as flamebait, but someone has to say it: the plural of "virus" is "viruses." It is not "virii" because that isn't an actual English word.
Yesterday, NPR's All Things Considered did a nice piece on it, you can download it here
In the same light, the US has never created a weapon it has not used.
This is absolutely not true. The US created many chemical weapons which it did not use (I don't know if we used chem weapons in WW-I, but we enver used them since then).
The US has NEVER used biological weapons (even the recorded use of smallpox against Indians was done by the British before the American Revolution).
The US has never used a hydrogen bomb.
The only good weather is bad weather.