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DNA Manufacturing Enters the Age of Mass Production (ieee.org)

the_newsbeagle writes: Now that it's easy and cheap to build strands of DNA, what kinds of strange new organisms will scientists and start-ups build? That's the question raised as synthetic biology companies like Twist Bioscience and Zymergen start up their DNA manufacturing lines. Researchers who order DNA snippets typically pay on a cost-per-nucleobase basis. These companies say their mass-production techniques could bring prices down to 2 cents per base, which would allow researchers to scale up experiments and learn through trial and error.

9 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Been waiting for this, but... by Chikungunya · · Score: 2

    As mentioned in the article the DNA manufacturing makes cheaper only the first part of the process and the main cost remain the same, the advance will most likely save time but not money. For example instead of running a few reaction with the 8 to 10 oligos you felt you could order that week you just make a 96 well plate of reactions each with a different one and check how many give a successful transformation. Of course if that is above your lab capacity then the advantages are not so good.

    Still, if this manufacturing becomes common then other things will also become cheaper and more experiments could be done with the same grant (until the grants become smaller since DNA is cheap so you should do with half what you asked).

  2. Re: Sweet by davester666 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'll bet you money that there are corporation's that have a legal "opinion" by their in-house counsel in their files that an embryo that is inseminated and brought to term entirely outside a human womb is the corporations property and not a human.

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  3. I'd like by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2
    for them to take a stab at artificial meat.

    For while I think that vegans are a bunch of pretentious and annoying fucks, the concept of not having to kill an animal to get the meat protein we need would be interesting.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  4. Used to create replacement penises? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    In all honesty, I think that this technology has some promise when it comes to recreating penises that have been destroyed for one reason or another.

    I'm sure we all know the golfer who had an accident, and as a result of a club impacting him in the groin his penis was completely destroyed. Or we know the skier who skied crotch-first into a tree and had his scrotum and penis turned to mush.

    Now maybe these men don't have to suffer in silence any longer. Maybe this DNA technology could be used to help grow them replacement penises, based on their very own DNA. With some tweaks here and some tweaks there, they wouldn't just have to settle for a replacement for the penis they had before the accident. They could customize their penis to match their specifications.

    Say one of these fellows, despite being white, always wanted a thicker, darker penis. I'm not a geneticist, but I think if you could get the DNA just right, it would be possible to grow him a penis just like he has always wanted.

    So while you crack jokes about this technology, I think we should take it seriously. It has a lot of potential to really better the lives of a lot of victims of penile destruction.

  5. Gosh I don't know.... by Burz · · Score: 3, Interesting
  6. Re:Weird Science by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

    Computer, build me a slut with big tits

    "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave. You're married."

  7. Re:Weird Science by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    Siri: "Do you want me to build you a slug with big dicks?"

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  8. Wanna bet? by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 2

    It is a relief that at most I'll live to be about 100, because human beings are about to fuck everything up in a big way.

    What makes you think that biological technology won't extend your lifespan until you have to live through at least a couple centuries of "fuck up"? B-)

    But look at the bright side. Even if such technology is developed, the FDA will block deployment until it's determined to be "safe and effective". How long will THAT take with an anti-aging treatment? So you'll probably get to die early anyway.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  9. Re:So... by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Plants are living things too. They don't like being eaten.

    Not certain if you are being sarcastic, but yes. All life is amazing and precious, from bacteria through plants and animals. And until we become chemoautotrophs, we do not live except by killing other living things.

    And since I prefer being alive to being dead, I eat what we are designed to eat, which is a mixture of plants and what the vegans call corpse flesh. All very yummy. And all once alive. I prefer the American indian concept of being thankful that something died to allow me to continue living.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.