Synthetic Life

The idea behind man creating new life is timeless. Can we take the power of God into our own hands? In 1818, the book Frankenstein was published. It was a story about the creation of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is life created by the tinkering of an organisms genes like they did in Jurassic Park. Michal Crichton wrote the soon to be bestseller, Jurassic Park: The Lost World in 1990, the book captured the imaginations of thousands. It was a tale about modern science finding the key to genetics. In the story, dinosaur DNA was found and extracted from mosquitoes trapped in amber. The DNA was then spliced together with frog DNA to fill in the gaps. Dinosaurs once again ruled the world.

In real life however, this trick cannot be easily duplicated. Instead, a man by the name of Craig Venter has been working with a team to create synthetic life. Synthetic life is the creation of life using Abiotic organisms (no living - viruses, and similar creatures). He began his search in 1990, on cataloging thousands and thousands of genomes. In 2008, he showed the world what he had created.

His team successfully took the Genome of a bacterium called Mycoplasma Mycoides, cut out the genetic code they did not want and transferred it into a yeast cell. Yeast cells have the ability to repair and organize genetic material. The yeast stitched the genome back together. By doing this he created the first synthetic (man-made) genome. They then took the completed code, and transferred it into a bacterium Mycoplasma Capricolum. This bacterium began to move and act and produce colonies of the altered Mycoplasma Mycoides.

So what does this mean for the future? The first step is the create microbes that can be utilized in everyday life. Ideas being thrown around currently, are microbes that consume plastic and glass to clean dump yards. Another huge step, would be microbes that could create oil as a waste. Some many different possibilities exist. Many things can go wrong however. A microbe could be produced that targets a certain individual’s cells, making viruses a tool of assassination or war.
Whatever the future holds it is coming quickly. Craig Venter has said that the first synthetic bacteria will be created by the end of this year.

Here is the link i will be showing in class on Monday, i will not be playing the entire thing, but for those interested youtube.com