Florida Lab Gets Pregnant

Synthetic Biology, a relatively new field, is seeking to find out what happened to a bunch of chemicals to make them capable of supporting a metabolism, replicating, and evolution. A Florida lab is showing some of the most promising advancements in this direction with their AEGIS (Artificially Expanded Genetic Information System) experiment. "AEGIS is not self-sustaining, at least not yet, and with 12 DNA building blocks -- as opposed to the usual four -- there's little chance it will be confused with natural life. Still, Benner is encouraged by the results. 'It's evolving. It's doing what we designed it to do,' said Benner, a biochemist with the Gainesville, Fla.-based Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution. In addition to providing an example of how alien life might be cobbled together, synthetic biology has a broad array of uses on the home front."

Comments

Not my fault

[SnarfQuest]

Don't blaim me! I thought she was on the pill!

ASICs?

[Mr. Firewall]

FTA: "Researchers in a Florida laboratory are working with the most asic building blocks of life...."

I didn't realize that life could be built from blocks of Application Specific Integrated Circuits. Hmmmm.