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Writing Genetic Code
An anonymous reader writes "The Globe and Mail is reporting on another group of researchers delving into the field of 'synthetic biology.' The project stemming from the efforts of two biology labs in British Columbia and Maryland is attempting to create the first synthetic life form. From the article: 'The project is being spearheaded by U.S. scientist Craig Venter, who gained fame in his former job as head of Celera Genomics, which completed a privately-owned map of the human genome in 2000. Dr. Venter, 59, has since shifted his focus from determining the chemical sequences that encode life to trying to design and build it: "We're going from reading to writing the genetic code," he said in an interview.'" This is certainly not the first group to venture into this territory.
Just wait until someone writes a piece of code that cures a genetic disease, but must be 'fed' with a certain medication. If not fed with said medication, it will do something real bad.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Good to hear somebody is working on something important.
If God didn't mean us to create life he would smite these people straight out, so we can kill that objection, BTW.
The interesting part is going to be how they actually turn their new genome into a living bacteria. They're basically going to have to either assemble the first one from whole cloth or trick some other microbe into producing what they want.
And even if we can make these things perform useful functions, how to make sure they don't die out from lack of an evolutionary niche or mutate and become pathological?
The DNA is only a small portion of the cell. If they want to make a whole synthetic organism, they're going to have to make the other organelles and various membranes--a task I would imagine would be just as difficult as building the DNA.
Sure, this is a big deal. But I don't think you can call an organism synthetic if all you are doing is injecting synthetic DNA into a pre-existing organism.
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
Bacteria don't have organelles; you're thinking of protists.
Another commenter mentioned that bacteria can't "mate". It was in quotes because its not really mating like we'd think of it; basically, some bacteria, when nearing death by starvation, will attach to another bacteria and inject its RNA or DNA strand into the other bacteria, producing an "offspring" that is a fusion of the two "parents" with the injector being the "male" and injectee the "female".
I'm not even a bio major, I'm an engineering major. They teach this stuff in Bio 1.
The other question is, once you have the DNA how do you kickstart the process. They appear to be inserting it into and E. coli with the nucleus removed. This means that the cellular machinery of the E. coli will be used to translate the DNA into protein and eventually a new synthetic cell. Does this mean that it is human created if we use naturally occuring cellular machinery?
The way I see it, the existing bacteria is just a DNA-compiler.
If I write a C-compiler in C, I need to use an existing C-compiler to build it. The old compiler, like the bacteria, is just a tool used in the process - no one would claim I didn't really write my compiler just because I had to bootstrap it off an existing one.
On the other hand, if I just took gcc and modified it extensively, I couldn't claim that I created it myself.
I think one of the biggest challenges isn't in synthesizing strings of DNA, per se - it's in knowing what DNA to synthesize. The real holy grail of synthetic biology is to engineer genetic functions to accomplish a particular goal - design to spec. From the average /. POV, this means "programming" genes in some high-level language (C++ DNA lib, anyone?). Take a look at The Registry of Standard Biological Parts for a first library of genetic "functions".
As I understand it, the current state-of-the-art in terms of programming DNA is basic logic gates that still tend to lose coherence when connected together. Once this is accomplished (best guess, 3-4 years from now to work out the basic science), all of the sophisticated tools and techniques developed by the IT community over the last decade(s) can be rapidly applied, and that goal of design/build to spec will become possible.
hehe, bring on the catgirls! :)
In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. - Carl Sagan
That's the genetic engineering approach. Find a gene and splicing it into bacteria. That's like finding a chasm and splicing in the Empire State building to bridge it. It might work, but designing a bridge to span the chasm will probably work better. That's synthetic biology.
I have doubts as to the likelihood of success using present science; in twenty years, perhaps it will be possible, but today it's really casting about in the dark. Even something as elemental as a bacteria is an incredibly complex thing, with a sophisticated genome and complex organelles working in biochemical harmony to reproduce, to "mate" by conjoining with other bacteria, and to adapt and thrive in a very wide variety of conditions.
I'd be more inclined to think that cost is the restricting factor today. It costs a ton of money to have a gene sequence assembled, but the price to do so is dropping exponentially if what I read on the subject back in January was true.
"Luckily, the human body has a pretty comprehensive immune system that will adapt to just about anything except retroviruses like AIDS that reprogram the immune system itself."
Eventually AIDS, if for some reason we Never find a cure, will probably just run its course. Humans would adapt or AIDS would evolve to be non-lethal, like in chimps. Or it will at least level off.
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nevermind, that's what i get for trying to be witty amongst slashnerds.
A good joke is funnier if it's true, but God help you if you make shit up and the details are off.
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