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.

Comments

Unlikely, but exciting if they pull it off

[yog]

Bacteria are already used to synthesize organic materials by reprogramming their DNA. For example, some antivirals and antibiotics are manufactured this way; the desired pattern is injected into the bacteria's genome and it will then produce that pattern. Venter's project is really just an extension of that approach.

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.

Bacteria have been around for billions of years and, as Stephen Jay Gould put it, we are living in the Age of Bacteria. In a few short years it seems unlikely that even brilliant scientists can recreate these things. Modify some, yes, but completely create from scratch something that is going to be viable--well, that's going to be interesting to see.

That said, if they can pull it off the possibilities of its use, for good or evil, are endless. They can be encoded to synthesize all sorts of compounds, eat nasty pollutants, generate fossil fuels, attack disease microbes, or be diseases themselves. 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.

Re:Recolada

[Ruff_ilb]

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?

Simple.
If we know their genome, presumably we can kill them off pretty darn quickly.
In this case, design flaws ARE a feature.
Can't wait until Microsoft gets into this field. Those BSOD's must be nasty.

Maybe...

[rodm13]

God intends us to make lifeforms of our own. Just finished reading an interesting piece on a person's "Talk with God", here's a link. [Ragged Trousered Philosopher]

Just noticed that the site's bandwidth is out, here's the Internet Archive's Cache:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050312133142/http://w ww.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal

Even if it is fiction, it's an interesting idea nonetheless.

Re:Is it really that synthetic?

[castoridae]

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.

Can you call a piece of (traditional computer) software your own (i.e. synthetic) if it mostly runs API functions provided by the (pre-existing) OS or a third-party library?

anyone else sense disaster?

[SuperBanana]

We're going from reading to writing the genetic code," he said in an interview.

We have a very bad track record when it comes to "our world" and "technology we invent".

Far as I'm concerned, "God" doesn't enter into it. I don't think we've developed nearly enough of an understanding about our world or microbiology...to even think about this. Our planet is a pretty complex machine, and we're stuck with it for the moment (and to all the escapists, no, I don't want to hear about your colonization ideas. Let's feed, clothe, and shelter our fellow humans before we send the most elite off to establish a "perfect" world...otherwise Earth becomes the home of the poor and disadvantaged.)

Call me crazy, but this sounds even worse than the whole nanomachine "grey goo" problem. "Grey goo" scenarios mostly revolved around incompetence (ie, we know how to design a perfect nanobot but someone skips "step number 54", or keys in an extra zero.) Here, we've got not only incompetence but also "we're not really sure how this all works." Oh, and to top it all off? The little buggers could just spontaneously mutate all on their own, because biology isn't a perfect machine. Lovely!

Interesting Issue with DNA as code

[ndansmith]

"Code" is an interesting word to use when talking about DNA. I think it was first termed as such since it seems to be an obvious descriptor of DNA: Information which is stored by the DNA molecule can be interpreted by the living organism as instructions for various proceses. There is obviously information there, and it does require interpretation, so it is "encoded."

Normally, when I talk about code, I understand that an agent, some sort of intelligent being, has put the information into code. If there is a code, it must have been encoded by someone, and non-intelligent phenomena do not produce encoded information (as far as I can reason). This sounds like a perfect solution for ID adherents, but must be troubling for evolutionists. Is "code" the correct terminology for talking about DNA? How does science explain the fact that all this information came to be encoded and stored in a DNA molecule by the process of natural selection (an unintelligent phenomenon despite the term "selection") such that living tissues can interpret it and put it into action? This issue is primary over natural selection itself, since the ability to pass information to offspring is a necessary condition for natural selection.

I am simply asking because the issue of humans writing their own custom DNA begs the question about how information came to be encoded in DNA in the first place. I never took biology, so I am quite ignorant and curious about this issue.

Re:Interesting Issue with DNA as code

[aonic]

DNA is "code" because each set of three (or is it four) nucleotides forms a codon. When a strand of DNA is transcribed to RNA, and then processed by an enzyme (transcriptase or something? it's been years since i took bio), protiens with one end that fits with that codon hook up to the RNA strand. the other end of that protien carries an amino acid (the components that form proteins), and so each codon gets "decoded" into an amino acid -- chains of which form proteins.

the information came to be "encoded" because that's probably the best way to pass on protein information. the double-helix of DNA allows it to be error-resistant (think bit flips), and makes it easy to replicate. and the encoding isn't really that complicated, but allows for many combinations from only 4 DNA molecules.

on the article itself, i belive what they're trying to do is put combinations of codons together to create a protein. so far, all we've done is take existing DNA strands that call for certain proteins and mix them around, adding insulin-producing DNA to e-coli, for example.

as for the dangers, i'm less worried about viral strains of mutant human-designed bacteria running around infecting everyone, as much as i'm worried about mutant proteins that we've never seen before. mad cow disease, anyone?

Re:Problems?

[ceoyoyo]

Fantastic. I'm going to steal a little bit of it and reverse engineer it so it doesn't need the medication any more. THEN I'll inject it. What, you want a copy too? Hm... well, I suppose I could upload it to Basetorrent.