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US Scientist Creates Artificial Life
Joshocar writes "The sometimes-controversial US scientist Craig Venter has announced that he has created artificial life. Venter stated that it is 'a very important philosophical step in the history of our species ... We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before.' In the lab, Venter was able to construct and write genetic code from laboratory chemicals. The next step is to insert this code into a cell, which has already been demonstrated in the past. This ability to write genetic code could result in new ways to combat global warming and new drugs, but it could also lead to new bio-weapons."
... saw that it was a "frist!" poster :(
So what exactly does 'Hello world' look like in DNA?
AGTCA
TCGCT "WORLD"
?
Craig Venter is playing God! How dare he?!
Life can only be created by our Lord.
This is worse than stem cell research!
I'm calling George W. Bush about this tomorrow. Do you think the executive branch could put through to ban the creation of Life except by God? Those activist judges legislating form the bench might call it unconstitutional, but Justice Scalia has our back.
Very Truely Yours,
Bob Dole
--
Write in George W. Bush. Never switch presidents in a war!
Patent Pending.
I for one would welcome our high speed lizard overlords.
We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before.
:) At some point I suspect scientists will realize it's impossible to keep tinkering at things on the gene-by-gene level.
:)
So ok, first 3 steps were:
1. figure out there's such a thing as "genetic code"
2. read genetic code
3. write genetic code
There are two more steps:
4. write some genetic code that results in something sensible
5. write some genetic code that results in something sensible, and that's useful for us
Arguably steps 4 and 5 are the hardest possible steps for us to conquer
We'll see "genetic frameworks" with reusable piece that have well known behavior, and genetical development kits that simulate assemblies' features and behavior much faster than doing full-blown atom-by-atom simulation.
Genetical programming will be born
But, oh damn, forget my wild dreams, back to Earth: let's make some drugs and bio-weapons!
Wait.. so if this was just discovered recently, the monsters that have been living under my bed all my life must have a family! I haven't felt sorry for them until now.
Venter was able to construct and write genetic code from laboratory chemicals. The next step is to insert this code into a cell, which has already been demonstrated in the past.
None of the above is creating "artificial life". DNA is the life created by someone or something else. Inserting a DNA into a cell is not creating "artificial life". The cell is already a life -- it is the life created by someone or something else. He only modifies the life. He didn't create it.
This is a highly philosphical topic. While I am not a creationalist, being able to biochemically construct a DNA pattern isn't what I'd really call life. If he can build an amoeba 100% from raw material, then that is pretty close. Looks like they're at the beginning stages though, so the field is definitely alive. :)
1) He has not announced this. He is expected to annouce it. It's not actually been done yet, according to the article, although Venter is '100% confident'.
...
2) It was not him but his team.
3) His team has not actually created the life form in question, it's just a stripped down copy of an existing life form.
4) His team has only made a copy of the chromosome, the other parts of cellular machinary come from an existing organism.
So the summary should read
Craig Venter is expected to announce that his team has created an artificial copy of a bacterium chomosome. The arficial chromosome, if all goes well, will be installed in a cell, and will take over its machinery, and effectivelly begin living.
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What a pity that one of the first things that we think of when making such a step forward is 'How can we use this to kill our fellow man?'. OK, so global warming and new drugs are also in there, but which one would you bet on will receive the big government funding?
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
So this is open source at it's best ...
He took the source for a bacterium, he forked it, and made a newer, cleaner version. He is about to start testing. His version does not yet actually do anything, but if all goes well it will be a great foundation for new and usefull stuff.
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Should we (as a species) have that ability? I suspect that now Craig "Pandora" Venter has opened this particular box, no end of troubles will come from it.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security - Ben Franklin
as long as Spielberg doesn't make a movie about it.
This guy actually knows what he's talking about.
The summary's use of the term 'genetic code' actually plays down the enormity of what's written about in TFA. We've been able to assemble 'genetic code' for a long time now - designer oligomers are a very useful tool for researchers, especially with regards to techniques like PCR, which requires a primer to really get started. The accomplishment written about in the article is that a chromosome was constructed. This isn't merely a snippet of code, but hundreds of genes (composed of hundreds of thousands of base pairs), arranged appropriately on the necessary protein structures. When the article says it was painstakingly assembled, I don't doubt it. That kind of synthesis is remarkably difficult, time-consuming and prone to error if careful attention isn't given to every detail.
Also note that this isn't actually synthetic life, just a synthetic genome. The components which translate that genome into a functional organism (i.e. the cell and it's structures) were not created. But this is none the less a great leap forward, and I'm sure the resulting findings and work to come from this will unlock vast possibilities, as well as elucidate some currently unknown processes and problems in molecular biology.
Speaking of possibilities, let's also try not to get too caught up in the nonsense here. This stuff about combating global warming and building drugs and/or bioweapons is just idle speculation, and could be applied to pretty much any kind of molecular biology research. This is just one step, albeit a big one, towards a possible larger goal.
"This ability to write genetic code could result in new ways to combat global warming..."
That's the kind of claim that tells me that he's fishing for funding, nothing more.
Bah, why am I so worried, I'm sure they will keep it safely contained like they have for rice
with the writing of this post!
From just a fast read of the article, I think the claim "creating" a new life is a bit exaggerated.
It's pared down from the genome of a pre-existing species and probably permuted the organisation of the genes on the chromosomes, therefore not much "creation" was involved, they just figured out what genes are not essentially for cell/organism viability and removed them. Granted, a LOT of work had to have been done to stitch together the final artificial chromosome, but still, I think it would be more correct to say it's an artificially _modified_ chromosome rather than created.
Gene therapy labs often play with the HIV virus, by taking out the nasty bits and put in replacement genes, to study whether it is an effective delivery system.
Scientists have difficulty predicting function and structure of known/natural proteins/genes, let alone making new ones. However, gene modification is very common, for example, GFP (green fluorescent protein) is commonly modified to fluoresce other colours. And genome paring is also pretty common, there was a group that removed 5 MB (megabases) from mouse genome and the mice still looked and behaved normally _in_the_lab_, can you claim that they were a new species of mouse?
Last I heard, the Mayo lab (http://www.mayo.caltech.edu/research.html) has created a completely novel gene which produced a protein that folded as they predicted it would. I haven't followed up on the progress since then.
Sure, it took tremendously amount of effort, but it's still exaggeration. An example, perhaps a bit unfair, but it's like saying people who pared down Windows installations by removing non-essential files are "creating" new operating systems.
Wrong hole. Biology fails you.
Craig Ventner, when asked about the risks of 'playing God' in the creation of a new form of microbial life responded
"My colleague Hammie Smith likes to answer: 'We don't play.'"
There's no denying the man has good ideas, and that this one has enormous potential. Unfortunately his egoism seemingly avaricious nature have put off many in the scientific community. Let's hope these factors don't slow this important development.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity!
DNA science is a Pandoras' Box.
How long until someone accidentally or willfully creates a pandemic plague?
During my life I have heard enough misanthropes announce opinions that we are all a scourge on the poor planet and that it would be better if we all dropped dead. I don't hold it for impossible that such a person with the right skills and tools might succeed doing it.
Presumably this new Generated Pseudo-Life (GP-L) will be viral in nature, seeking to beat down the monopoly stranglehold held by the entrenched biocommunity of today and replace it with something that, while having no market of its own, cannot be killed and hence will continue in perpetuity to drive down the value of Life itself, all the while touting "if it can be freely replicated, it must not be of any value".
And as the last of us natural-born Slashdot readers gasps his last breath of air, he will go to his well-deserved grave happily knowing that software is finally, really, truly free.
I can't wait.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Oh brother. Now I'm afraid of seeing "In Soviet Russia, Life makes you!"
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Make Godzilla!
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I'm glad you mentioned that. What was it? On NOVA? There was some scientist that's trying to make a synthetic life form that's completely different from what's on this planet. It would reproduce and feed, but it wasn't a cell as we know it - it didn't require the use of bacteria. He said he was really close. I want to say it's based on silicon, but I think that memory was created from too many years watching "Star Trek".
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
"but it could also lead to new bio-weapons."
Because that's what we need more of....
But I like it better this way B-)
You're misreading that sentence. It's not, "But we can kill people with this! Cool!"
:( :( :("
It's, "OH MY GOD THINK OF THE CHILDREN OMG OMG OMG SCIENCE IS BAD
At least, that's how it should be read here in the good ol' God'n'terrism fearin' US o' A.
"a very important philosophical step" — anybody else wondering how this guy defines 'ethics' ?
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
I don't know if Venter made the overhyped claim but it will surely come back to bite science. Creationists and other voodoo merchants will surely seize on this as an example of scientists claiming far too much, and use it as ammunition to discredit science in the eyes of their followers (I started by typing "foolowers" but how many people nowadays know what it means when you write [stet] after a happy mistype?).
Nobody can claim to create artificial life until there is a complete self-reproducing unit built from inorganic chemicals from the ground up. I don't know how long it will be before that happens, (diminishing resources may mean it never happens - we may have much more urgent tasks for scientists over the next 50 years or so.) but this isn't it. It looks like it is an important technical advance, but it is on a level with, say, the development of the CNC machine, and the claims in the media are about as accurate as if someone had written "With the development of the CNC workstation, we have created self-reproducing robots in the laboratory.
Pining for the fjords
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I, for one, do /not/ welcome our new transgenic, apocaylpse-causing microscopic overlords.
Microsoft Man 1.0
He followed a template from Mycoplasma genitalium . Venter calls his sexy little chimera Mycoplasma laboritorium. I, for one, feel suspicious about our new genital-disease-derived overlords.
I sometimes wonder if people who come up with pithy tags realize they're totally useless. How many posts do people expect to fall under itslifejimbutnotasweknowit & notlifefromnonlife?
Some people under-estimate the potential significance by saying that we've been able to insert new genes in organisms for quite some time. That is true, but it misses the point, because for the first time the complete genome (operating system code) can be replaced with a different externally supplied version. That is a very significant and important capability, as it allows you to escape from the constraints of an existing operating system.
However, because it relies on the existing hardware (protein synthesis machinery, metabolic enzymes, etc.), it's not the same as creating a whole new computer system (hardware and software) from scratch. In the beginning, of course a lot of the new genes will just be copies of those from existing genomes. But just like free/open-source software, having complete control of the OS will enable a much faster rate of development of new code.
Complete assembly of ALL of the biomolecular components of a cell from basic non-living building blocks will certainly be another great milestone in biotechnology. But just as with computers, I personally expect advances in biotechnology will occur with much greater speed and diversity by modifying the software (genes) as opposed to the hardware.
mhack
Building a better ribosome since 1997
IT'S A GIANT PLASMID!!!
WHERE ARE MY BIOCHEM GEEKS???
They just stitched together a giant friggin plasmid, that's it.
If they made a chromosome, great, that would be awesome because no one can do that yet, but it's a plasmid, sure, a fully working one, but still just a loop of DNA.
They educated people writing these articles...
He didnt create life, he created DNA. And just like any programming it will probably fail at first.
Congratulations.
You've just proven that it takes intelligence and a lot of hard work to create life.
While it would technically be considered a different species (though perhaps in the same genus as the parent species), I wouldn't consider it artificial life. All they did was repeatedly remove genes and see if the organism was viable. They still have no idea how most of the genes and regulation actually work. Simply modifying an organism doesn't constitute artificial life unless you consider dog breeds or other things we've created by breeding. By the same notion, it's not considered artificial life when a new custom chromosome (called a plasmid) is inserted into a bacteria or eukaryotic cell. It's done all the time and has been since the 80s. All they did was get rid of "extraneous" genes that they don't deem necessary. They're trying to make a designer organism to synthesize/produce compounds. This is one step in achieving that, though it was arguably unnecessary. The hard part is creating genes/proteins to make it do what you actually want. This involves creating a new biochemical pathway (or modifying an existing one), probably creating new enzymes to recognize your intermediates, designing ER and golgi receptors to recognize their finished product and target it for excretion from the cell, creating proper regulation of this pathway, etc, etc. As you can see, it's very complicated. No one has successfully created their own enzyme or protein yet, let alone an entire biochemical pathway of them.
We'll see "genetic frameworks" with reusable piece that have well known behavior, and genetical development kits that simulate assemblies' features and behavior much faster than doing full-blown atom-by-atom simulation.
:)
:)
Genetical programming will be born
This sounds to me like a great setting for a science fiction book (or a morals-related debate)- a future world where there is proprietary genetic code which only some people can afford and a gpl-style licensed genetic code which everyone can freely use.
If anyone here knows of such work that explores such issues (and not only the popular genetic profiling issue) please comment
God who?
I don't use DNA unless it is GPLed.
I just wonder if his code will be released under GPL2 or 3..if it is released under GPLv3 then it might taint my kernel! God help us if it is released under a bsd license.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
My hats off to those /.'ers who came up with the "itslifejimbutnotasweknowit" tag :D
Anyone else remember sitting in high school bio and learning about MRS GREN (Movement; Respiration; Sensitivity; Growth; Reproduction; Excretion; Nutrition)? By this definition of life, a virus would not be considered.
It's hard to visualize the interior of cells, because particles are smaller than light waves, it's all in a liquid medium, and everything is crowded. Scripps Institute researcher David Goodsell paints cell interiors in a sort of "two and half dimensional" view, showing the proteins and other macromolecules but leaving out water and small ions. You see a cross section plus a little more, and it is actually very helpful in terms of understanding how things fit together in a cell. The first painting here is E. Coli and shows the center, full of DNA all crowded and twisted onto spools (nucleosomes), surrounded mostly by ribosomes which create proteins. Then there is the cell membrane and in this view, a flagellum (which acts as a propeller).
This helps to understand the magnitude of Venter's project. DNA really does take up the majority of space in a cell like this. It's true that he's using the ribosomes and such that were already there, but replacing the DNA will totally change how the cell works and functions.
It will be interesting to see what happens if they add DNA for a structure like a flagellum which does not exist in the "donor" cell, or for a cell that is shaped very differently than the donor. The new cell should start to grow the appendages or change its shape appropriately. Some pretty freaky experiments will be possible.
12 Monkeys
Venter is a pretty smart guy. He knows how to stimulate public imagination and raise more capital for more adventures in his lab. By trimming the M. genitalium genome by 20%, has he "created life"? That's a very good question. How about your biomedical friend who knocked out a single yeast gene, thereby altering the expression profile of more than 50% of yeast genes in the new yeast strain (a common occurrence, I assure you). Has your friend created artifical life?
If the announcement is in the form of a conference/symposium, rest assured there is probably some meat to it. As well as a lot of hype. Let us judge the importance of it after seeing what his M. genitalium hack actually achieved.
Cut to the chase and tell me how long until I can start splicing? There's nothing quite like a fist full of lightning.
A small correction to Teancum's reading of the article, the next step would be to create an artificial *prokaryote* or bacteria, not a eukaryote. The goal of eukaryotic life being made in the lab is quite a ways away, since it would require the ability to create a working nucleus/nuclear-pore system for moving mRNA to the rest of the cell, as well as the creation of many membrane bound organelles (mitochodria, chloroplasts -- if it is a plant, endoplasmic reticulum, golgi apparatus, etc) which are functionally important to the cell. The goal of prokaryotic artificial life is much closer as the DNA is translated to mRNA in the cytoplasm, and all processes are conducted without the more sophisticated organelles. In fact, Mycoplasma genitalium, the bacteria used, follows this line of thought, and his new 'species' is called Mycoplasma laboratorium (a very creative name). Other than that, you are right on your points Teancum.
The good news on this goal is that much of the technology needed is available. We can currently create artificially plasma membranes (though the bilayer specific phospholipids found in living cells tend to be mixed into both of the bilayers), and as shown by Ventor, we can create the necessary chromosomes. Much remains to do, but we are getting closer.
Unfortunately, our current understanding of protein structure and function as based on the raw DNA code is still lacking, and so any chromosome, including Ventors, would not be original in the genetic coding, but would rather be a spliced together collection of genes that we know the function of (I believe his goal was the minimum necessary genome). To be truly artificial life, it would need to be a base by base creation.
Many people are against this kind of work, out of fears of it harming humans or intermixing with natural bacteria. One solution to this, which can only take place once we have the knowledge to design every protein and base pair of a cell, would be to create a new genetic code. I believe Dr. James Watson (who proved that DNA was the heritable material of all life) proposed a scheme that he thought was the real one (before we actually determined it). I am fairly certain it is in his book "DNA: the Secret of Life" and it is so far off of what we have now, if we gave it to artificial bacteria and it was transferred to other natural bacteria, they would only see junk in the code. It might even prevent the bacteria from becoming virulent to humans, but this might not be guaranteed.
We are made wise not by the collection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future. -George Bernard Shaw
See?
>> could result in new ways to combat global warming
>> and new drugs, but it could also lead to new bio-weapons.
But will it result in smaller cell-phones?
Artificial Intelligent Design!
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
The headline reads "US Scientist Creates Artificial Life" instead of "US Scientist CLAIMS TO HAVE CREATED Artificial Life"
Big difference.
It's like saying no one ever gets down to the core and uses assembly.
But I don't really disagree. Just like computing has revolutionized our society, genetic programming will do the same. My bets are on bio-weapons > usefull stuff though.
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this, let's say we have a man making contest." To which the scientist replied, "OK, great!"
But God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life... He had such a knowledge of the dark side he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying.
tttfa: (The Title of The Fucking Article)
... and then my brain exploded.
I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer
Scientist has made synthetic chromosome
Breakthrough could combat global warming
Isn't this wrong? As in, completely and utterly wrong due to the potential of destroying ourselves if me make screwing with this technology a precedent? That even assumes that we didn't just get it wrong the first time around (this time) and destroy ourselves turning this chromosome into an organism. Didn't nuclear weapons teach us that lesson, or is the world blind? facebook group "The New Times" or myspace.com/thenewtimes for a longer interpretation of our current situation. This is one of the topics I deal with.
Suppose they eventually get to the point where creating and implanting customized genetic code is trivial. What's next? Creating code that will make the implanted cells start construction of totally new cells from scratch using loose chemicals available in the body already without the usual cell-division mechanism, and finish by delivering a viral payload of secondary genetic code? Will that satisfy the conditions of "creating" new life, or will it fail because we still used a middle-man for the construction?
The cells may not be true nanobots, but they're still machines carrying out our commands.
Realistically though, I find it kind of pointless to add in the whole qualifier of outer cellular creation, since it's unlikely to ever be used. Why reinvent the entire wheel when you just need different spokes? Most likely, we'll create a custom code set to get existing cells to replicate themselves into a neutral "blank" state, then just virally infect the whole batch with the code we need at the time.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Soviet Russia? Is that you?
He's using generic code so it can't be non-obvious.
This is joke, however lame....
completely unfunny and overrated.
One step closer to the half-man, half-monkey-type creature!
HAHAHAHA! Intelligent design? Looks like it's happening!
Unless someone could prove that Venter is not intelligent, I think the Creationists win this one!
Now who said (paraphrase) "There is nothing new that hasn't been done yet."???
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
John Horton Conway just left implementation as an exercise for the reader.
... [the DNA] is then transplanted into a living bacterial cell and in the final stage of the process it is expected to take control of the cell and in effect become a new life form. The team of scientists has already successfully transplanted the genome of one type of bacterium into the cell of another, effectively changing the cell's species. Mr Venter said he was "100% confident" the same technique would work for the artificially created chromosome. So... he creates the 'living' DNA and then transplants it into something living... and thus it is alive?So it could potentialy solve globalwarming, or be a cancer drugs or create hydrogen or whatever. Just what is a hot topic at the moment, it can produce. While allready in those fields (globalwarming, cancer etc) they know it is quite hard to find solutions. Because understanding of a cause is difficult, finding a theoretical design solution (has not even been done) but allready we have something that can do it... (ahum grin grin)
While investor are not even sure if they will be sued by soms kind of believe who believe god patended life..
Just imagine this bogus non used DNA was decoded as "copyright by..."
joking..:))
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
Sorry guys but .. it's not life till it can die. I commend this guys efforts, awesome stuff but.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life -- this is life.
Let me see if I get this right...
We live on a ball of dirt in space (with really nice fjords) and it's been working up random sequences of genetic code and testing the viability of each one over a period of what? 5 Billion years or something like that if you consider the pea-soup era of evolution.
And now we have a chemist who is going to start the whole fucking process over again in his lab. Considering he's got to replicate 5 billion years of research he's got great job security. But what I'm not sure about is what is going to be the benefit of someone going through all the genetic combinations that have already been gone through by natural selection (or intelligent design if you prefer).
I think it's cool he can do this, but can someone point out the value of starting over?
The Mycoplasma genitalium community won't be able to enjoy the changes made to its source code. This would have never happened if it had been released under the GPL!
finally! soon we'll have code-monkeys!
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
When an artist creates, does he necessarily have to be the creator of the platform on which he creates..? Does a painter actually make paint - -and even then, say he actually made his own paint, you could still say he didn't make the rocks and plants and whatever of which the paint is made, and so the word 'create' loses all meaning, except when attributed to a first-cause god-thing. If humans can create anything - prose, sculpture, architecture or whatever - you must assume that create in this sense means something more akin to compose or synthesis rather than the biblical 'create' - even when it comes to life. I argued this point precisely on my blog.
And if they created something like DNA, we'd hear that they didn't create the proteins from scratch. If they created proteins, we'd here that they didn't create the still more basic building blocks, down to matter itself. Then we'd hear that they didn't create the universe, or the physical constants by which existence is possible, or whatever. No, I'm not saying that he created artificial life. But I've heard the "and God said, 'get your own dirt'" joke before, and as funny as it was at the time, I don't really like the smug we're-smarter-than-those scientists mentality I see behind it. When anti-intellectual populism shows its value in antibiotic research or in any other field of science, I may respect it more. Until then, I'm down with the science.
You'll be waiting for this call forever. The structure even of a single cell is immensely complex.
Indeed. That's why Fred Hoyle (who discovered nucleosynthesis in stars, and coined the term "Big Bang") was correct to point out,
If only ten amino acids of particular kinds are necessary at particular locations in a polypeptide chain for its proper functioning,
the required arrangement (starting from an initially different arrangement) cannot be found by mutations, except as an outrageous
fluke. Darwinian evolution is most unlikely to get even one polypeptide right, let alone the thousands on which living cells depend for their
survival. This situation is well-known to geneticists and yet nobody seems prepared to blow the whistle decisively on the theory.
At this time, it is futile for science to vainly pursue a bottom-up approach to artificial life, in hopes of demonstrating how the first living organism could have self-assembled out of the primordial soup.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
...write genetic code that doesn't result in an abomination, like the Brundlefly.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Einstein gave us much of the theory to build the atomic bomb. Venter is giving us the technology to manipulate life as we know it.
Venter is a disgrace to science. He does mediocre research and uses a very efficennt PR machine to make it appear as if he has revolutioned science every second week. In fact, BACs and other artificial chromosomes were invented more than 30 years ago. Oligonucleotide synthesis is also as old (this is the only interesting part: large scale template-free DNA synthesis and assembley). Combining these two technologies is not really something revolutionary. Especially in light of the complete absence of any biological insight.
It was the same with his latest genome sequencing article (his own genome). Nothing special about it (except that it took them 10 years, vary far from being an everyday technology suited for individual medicine). Just some PR works, some misleading numbers to make people believe that they have made a radical new discovery (summing indels and substitutions in order to claim that diversity is higher than previously reported).
I find this behaviour so offenisve towards the thousands of scientists who are anonymously doing their hard work in their lab, and that even when they make a truly revolutionary discovery, don't go out and brag about it.