Synthetic Chromosomes Successfully Integrated Into Brewer's Yeast

New submitter dunnomattic writes: "Researchers at New York University School of Medicine have achieved a milestone in synthetic biology. A fully synthetic yeast chromosome, dubbed 'synIII,' has successfully replaced chromosome 3 of multiple living yeast cells. The researchers pieced together over 250,000 nucleotide bases to accomplish this feat. Dr. Jef Boeke, the lead author of the study, says, 'not only can we make designer changes on a computer, but we can make hundreds of changes through a chromosome and we can put that chromosome into yeast and have a yeast that looks, smells and behaves like a regular yeast, but this yeast is endowed with special properties that normal yeasts don't have.' Work is underway (abstract) to synthesize the remaining 15 chromosomes."

Comments

One small step for man

[ArcadeMan]

One giant leap for Synthehol.

The screams will be forthcoming soon....

[jcochran]

Oh lord, the Luddites are bad enough with "normal" genetically engineered foods. I hate to imagine the kind of outcry they're do for this.

Re:The screams will be forthcoming soon....

[lgw]

The only reason anyone cares about Monsanto IP is that the products are better (unless you have the luxury of organic). If the farmer didn't come out ahead by buying Monsanto seed, he wouldn't bother.

But if Monsanto were as profitable as you seem to imagine, it would have several competitors each with it's own IP. Look at their finances: good by the standards of heavy industry, but terrible by the standards of an "IP company". Eh, they employ 20,000 people, and they do OK but not great. Not the evil overlord at all, really.

Re:Next goals:

[MightyYar]

On the other hand, things like Dutch Elm Disease show just how devastating a new pathogen can be. I think co-evolution is why "natural" diseases don't have much chance in wiping us out. Given this new ability to skip evolution altogether, look out.