Synthetic Life In The Lab

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Posted by Hemos on Monday April 26, 2004 @01:30AM from the trying-to-build-it-all dept.

niktesla writes "Scientific American is carrying a story about sythetic life - genetic engineered "machines" made from DNA building blocks called "BioBricks". The goal is to produce a library of building blocks that can be assembled to give predictable results. Reminds me of the technology behind Blade Runner's replicants."

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Blade runner's replicants are part of a *story*! by Moderation+abuser · 2004-04-26 01:33 · Score: 5, Funny

There's this thing called fiction where you don't have to tell the truth, then there's this thing called science fiction where you can just make anything you like up.

Then there's this thing called real life which just sucks because you can't make any of it up. Though someone should tell that to Tony Blair.

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Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Saviour for people in need in of transplants? by BuddieFox · 2004-04-26 01:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

Probably stating the obvious here, but once this gets dependable and easy to form to different needs, "BioBricks" might spell the end of people dying due to lack of suitable organ donors.
I think we will rather see that before we see any horror scenarios like "Blade Runner like replicant slaves".
1. Re:Saviour for people in need in of transplants? by cammoblammo · 2004-04-26 01:54 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  What sort of idiots do you think we are? We're /.ers. We've memorised every little bit of our high school biology books on the chapters to do with sexual reproduction.
  
  Pity that very few of us will be able to take our learning into the field.
  
  --
  Cogito, ergo sig.
2. Re:Saviour for people in need in of transplants? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-04-26 02:32 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Death is one of the most important parts of life.
  
  Death is an important part of life in the same way that 0 is an important part of 1.
  
  It doesn't matter too terribly much when or how it occurs, as long as the person has enjoyed their life.
  
  This is called "hedonism" and is, like all other non-reproductive theories of what is or is not important in life, unsupported by evidence.
  
  If an organ fails, maybe the question "Does this person still need to live" should be asked.
  
  Maybe the question should be "Does this organ need replacement?" This is not 600 B.C.
  
  After all, we don't all need to be alive forever.
  
  None of us need to be alive at all.
  
  I'd hate to see the day when people live to be 180 years old.
  
  Knock yourself out, then.
  
  If people stop dying (or death slows down, as it surely will continue to do), the world's population problem will only grow.
  
  Earth doesn't have a population problem, humans have a resource distribution problem.
  
  I think people really need to 1) stop having children
  
  I think scientists need to invent a time machine and give this advice to your parents.
  
  2) try to accept death a little more.
  
  You first.
Trypo! by Himring · 2004-04-26 01:34 · Score: 5, Funny

"Scientific American is carrying a story about sythetic life...."

Trypo!

--
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
How Long Before... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-04-26 01:35 · Score: 5, Funny

Lego Starts Suing?
MIT Database by cTbone · 2004-04-26 01:46 · Score: 5, Informative

MIT Registry of Standard Biological Parts:

http://parts.mit.edu/

As mentioned in the article.
Re:Guess it depends on the definition of "life" by Michael+Dorfman · 2004-04-26 02:05 · Score: 5, Funny

> Any life arising from the hand of man is de facto synthetic

Well, that would apply to most donated sperm, then.
Before you get carried away by espressojim · 2004-04-26 02:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

Before you all get carried away with this, a few things to note:

This is a bacterial genome. What is currently being produced is isolated sets of parts of the genome that have been cataloged as having specific functions in a bacteria. These 'blocks' could be put together, if you knew how to regulate all of them, and you were smart enough to add all the neccesary components for replication.

This sort of information is already known for some bacteria. There is a very small amount of DNA in bacterial genomes, and it's easy to sequence. On top of that, it's easier to figure out exactly what a particular bit of sequence does, so this is just creating a one stop shop to look up particular coding sequences.

What this *isn't* is a eukaryotic genome. You aren't going to be putting together complex organisms this way in our lifetime. We don't even know what the VAST majority of the genome does. Do you remember the phrase 'junk dna'? We're now figuring out that the 'junk' actually has function, and there's even been a case where a mutation in intronic DNA has been shown to cause disease. Life is much more complicated in organisms larger than bacteria, and it's going to take the rest of our lives to reverse engineer complex life, much less begin to design it from scratch.

So, the take home message: It's cool, and it may be useful for bacteria. We're not going to grow organisms, people, tissue, organs, etc with this idea.
Re:End of death by simonjester2424 · 2004-04-26 04:00 · Score: 5, Interesting

If you are still alive, and an exact copy of you is made (mind and body). Is that you or a copy of you? Now I distroy the original. Have I killed you or not? Your copy still lives, but you're dead, neh?
So, how can you say that downloading someone makes them immortal? Perhaps their copy is semi-immortal.

There are still plenty of ways for the copy to die, even if the process is perfect: insanity, lose of power, deletion (murder or accident), hardware/software failure, bitrot.....

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Beware of gifts bearing Greeks.