CREATING ARTIFICIAL LIFE
For the first time in history, a synthetic life form designed and created by humans has been constructed in an American lab. Scientists’ visions of customised organisms that can clean up oil spills or produce fuel and medication were little more than scie
The simples living thing in the world wasn’t made by nature. It was made in a lab. Now what will its creators do with this knowledge?
Ascientific breakthrough at a Californian research centre has made centuries of dreams of designing life come true. The American scientists have neither created Frankenstein’s monster nor revived the dinosaurs, like in Jurassic Park. Instead, microscopic organisms created by means of ground-breaking methods grow in their lab. Whereas life on Earth formed via millions of years of natural evolution, the new life forms were designed and made by humans. And scientists already plan to use the tiny creatures in the fight against everything from diseases to global warming.
SEARCHING FOR THE ESSENCE OF LIFE
Geneticist and entrepreneur Craig Venter is the man behind the ground-breaking project, which could soon change our idea of life. For two decades, the scientist has been driven by a wish to understand the secret of life. Six years ago, he managed to create a synthetic copy of a bacterium’s complete DNA sequence, also known as the bacterium’s genome. The artificial genome was introduced into cells from another type of bacterium, converting it into a different species. But Venter wasn't satisfied with imitating nature. He wanted to find the basic ingredients of life and create a brand new life form in the lab. A new organism, which, in spite of its simplicity, includes the tools needed to maintain itself, all the way from its high-protein interior to its exterior membrane. And most importantly: an organism that can divide and pass on life to its descendants.
The great breakthrough came earlier this year, when Venter and his team of scientists found the basic formula of life and created a functional synthetic genome from scratch.
Like natural genomes, the new genome consists of a long code made up by the four DNA-bases A,T, C, and G. Shorter sequences in the genome, known as genes, function as working sketches for the make-up of new proteins. The proteins are a cell’s workers, that determine which nutrients the organism is able to break down or absorb as food. However, Venter’s artificial genome differs from the ones created by nature. The American pioneer has removed all superfluous genes, leaving only the most important ingredients of life. As a result, the artificial genome is simpler than any other we know on Earth, and it is the first designed and made by humans.
ARTIFICIAL LIFE BASED ON NATURE
The most simple organism created by nature is the Mycoplasma genitalium bacterium with only 525 genes. In comparison, a human being has 20,000. When Venter began his ambitious research project, he based it on this very organism. But Mycoplasma genitalium proved to be hard to adapt to life in the lab’s nutrient fluids and it takes almost 24 hours for it to double. After years of difficulties, Venter switch to the closely related Mycoplasma mycoides bacterium instead. With 901 genes, its genome is more complex, but it grows faster and that actually makes it easier to work with.
In 2010, the scientists from California took the first step on the way towards artificial life, when they managed to synthesise the entire genome of Mycoplasma mycoides in a machine. In a genome transplant, they transplanted the synthetic DNA sequence into a closely related bacterium species. The procedure had never been carried out before, but it is reminiscent of the method used when the cloned sheep Dolly was born in 1996. In the cloning process, scientists removed
Craig Venter Geneticist and successful entrepreneur S. HUFFAKER/SCANPIX I am 100 % certain that in the future, scientists will use their computers to design and build organisms.