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Artificial Bases Added to DNA
holy_calamity writes "Researchers have successfully added two 'unnatural' DNA letters to the code of life. They created two artificial base pairs that are treated as normal by an enzyme that replicates and fixes DNA inside cells. This raises the prospect of engineering life forms with genetic code not possible within nature, allowing new kinds of genetic engineering."
Does this really sound like a good idea?
What do we really understand about the human body? How much do we understand about infectious diseases, or the effects of environmental pollutants?
Why do we spend money on this when they can't even predict what use it could have? It could create new proteins. What could they do? They could be incredibly toxic. They could be the basis for some form of organic life we have no means to defend ourselves from. They could be a novelty toy in the lab.
As antibiotics lose effectiveness and new viruses mutate in potential pandemics, this seems more like buying a lottery ticket than real science. Only this lottery ticket could get us killed in a number of ways...What level of containment is the lab they're working in? Can they be sure they won't create some self-replicating disease?
In a way the biological sciences are FAR more dangerous than particle or nuclear physics - there are little in the way of controls for these people and their equipment costs a lot less.
People cite science fiction disparagingly all the time - "Oh sure, some sort of plague will occur just like the book by so-and-so."
It should be remembered that science fiction authors are like philosophers of old - they get paid to dream and speculate about the future - some are better than others - and a lot of stories are based on themes that have already occurred in some form or another.
If you want to create some novel form of protein or replicating molecule - do it in level 4 containment, k?
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