First Successful Genome Transplant In Bacteria

eldavojohn writes "Researchers reported the first genome transplant from one bacterium to another, thereby transforming the species from M. mycoides to M. capricolum. The research, published in Science, shows that it is possible to achieve a success rate of 1 in 150,000 genome transplants in bacteria. While this may not seem like very good odds, it's actually a major step towards synthetic life, opening up the possibility of tailoring bacteria to our needs. The article mentions medical uses and fuel production as possible applications."

Comments

Re:Strong containment

[Valar]

Well, except that wide spectrum antibiotics target whole categories of bacteria. What really matters is the type of cell wall, because that is usually what antibiotics disrupt. As long as the resulting bacteria has a cell wall like the ones in other bacteria (and I see no reason why they wouldn't be designed that way), then we will have no problems, especially if it is a gram positive bacteria.