artificial life – step two
A few months ago, we blogged about Craig Venter’s team’s first step in the creation of an artificial life or rather a ‘synthetic lifeform’, i.e. the transplantation and kickstarting the genome of one species of bacterium into another. In the meantime, step two has been taken, i.e. the creation of the first synthetic genome by stringing several DNA strands together using yeast, and step three – putting 1 and 2 together + inserting the synthetic genome in a standard bacterium, in other words: man-made life – is around the corner. A synthetic human genome is estimated to be in reach by 2014.
“With the new ability to sequence a genome, scientists can begin to custom-design organisms, essentially creating biological robots that can produce from scratch chemicals humans can use. Biofuels like ethanol, for example.”
“The J. Craig Venter Institute will be able to take a file stored on a computer and using synthetic chemistry, turn that information into life,” said Chris Voigt, a University of California at San Francisco synthetic biologist. “I would be shocked if it doesn’t come out in six months. I think they’ve done it.”
The discourse concerning this scientific and technological breakthrough is heated to say the least. While the opportunities are huge, the threats unfortunately are more top of mind for many people. Management, scaling and speeding up of the societal debate concerning such technologies is crucial for a smooth and reasonable future. Sociologists sometimes refer to a ‘timebomb‘ metaphor when discussing the inability of societal debate to keep up with the speed and acceleration of new developments, re: the huge problems to which this could lead. Reason is a precious balance.
Image is a fragment of Gerhard Richter‘s amazing code-of-life-based stained glass window in the Dom in Cologne, Germany
Via Wired
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