Software Lets Scientists Assemble DNA

Velcroman1 writes "Biochemical engineers can now download a piece of software and with a few simple clicks, assemble the DNA for new life forms through their laptops. 'With the proper computer tools, biologists can write their own genetic code — and then turn that code into life,' said biochemist Omri Amirav-Drory, who founded Genome Compiler Corp., the company that sells the software. He demonstrated at a coffee shop early one morning by manipulating a bacteria's genes on his laptop. The synthetic biology app is still in beta; on Jan. 15, the company added an undo feature and support for new DNA file formats. Building creatures is increasingly like word processing, it would seem. But such is the strange reality in the age of cheap genome sequencing, DNA synthesizing and 'bioinformatics.'"

Comments

Think I've played this game already

[dywolf]

It was called Spore.

Undo?

[meta-monkey]

"Undo feature?" Shouldn't the command to eliminate your unwanted DNA creations be called "Abort?"

Misleading title

[subanark]

Wow, that is really a misleading title for those in the field. "Assemble" generally refers to solving the jigsaw puzzle of putting digitized DNA fragments generated from a sequencing machine together to form contigs which can eventually be assigned to a chromosome.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_assembly

Re:So -- the terrorists win in the end

[ArcadeMan]

So what you mean is that we should be monitoring Linux users?

Re:So -- the terrorists win in the end

[micromoog]

QUICK, STOP ALL SCIENCE

Sussman: Emacs mode to edit genome

[ODBOL]

In the late 1980s or 1990ish, I attended a meeting sponsored by the National Science Foundation, to promote interaction between biologists and computer scientists. Much of the discussion focussed on designing algorithms and producing programs to answer questions posed by biologists. That part of the discussion was dominated by laments: biologists describe problems, computer scientists create programs to solve them, biologists find that the solution isn't really what they wanted.

Gerald Sussman (MIT, creator of Scheme) was at the meeting. At one point he got excited, and captured the podium. Alas, there is no transcipt, but here's my paraphrase of his inspiring speech:

Writing programs to serve biologists is cool as far as it goes, but our collaboration should cut much deeper. The genetic code is a programming language, and we should help biologists figure out the structure of the programs written in the alphabet of the bases. What I really want is the Emacs mode to edit the genome, so I can give myself a prehensile tail.

I have a great memory. I remember good stuff, and some of it happened. Please don't blame Mr. Sussman for any idiocies in my paraphrase. Maybe I projected the prehensile tail from my own repressed desires. But, I do think Mr. Sussman deserves great credit for observing the deep conceptual connections between CS and genetics at a time when very few of us thought beyond the idea of writing computer programs to help solve genetic problems.

Re:So -- the terrorists win in the end

[ultranova]

And how long will it be until extremists design and assemble a lethal and unstoppable virus this way and trigger a global epidemic that wipes out humanity in the name of Allah?

Probably forever, because:

1. Wiping out humanity is the one thing anyone - including the extremists - ought to understand is guaranteed to royally piss off any creator god that might be behind human existence (or any being even remotely interested in humanity, for that matter).
2. Politically motivated terrorism doesn't exactly have many scenarios where actually ending the world would get you what you want either.
3. It's pretty hard to imagine that fundamentalists could outsmart biologists who, after all, also have access to this tool to make a cure.

Nice work, Omri; you've just handed them the tools.

On the other hand, idiots who think other people are cartoon supervillains and appeal to that caricature to argue against new tools are certainly capable of killing millions by hindering the War on Disease. You and everyone who modded you up ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You're just as bad as the anti-vaccine people, except you don't even have misfiring parental instincts as an excuse.

Scare Quotes Not Needed

[me01chanl]

It's no more appropriate to say "bioinformatics" than it is to say "algebra" - they're well defined fields.