Creating such an artificial life
Rockville, Md. biologist J. Craig Venter, the Government after the United States, for the decoding of the human genome. Career now the code of life, Dr. Venter has a new goal that is .. Life.
With two other veterans, Dr. Venter hopes that the first, in order to bacteria. Normally, the new life from the reproduction, with almost every generation, it is genes to the next. But Dr. Venter aims to bypass this process by creating a complete set of genes or the genome of a single cell of the bacteria in his laboratory. This man would be in the genome of a bacterium whose genes have been carefully removed.
Antonio’s article says that by creating such an artificial life, Dr. Venter’s researchers hope they come closer to understand what life and how they can handle the academics in the service of mankind. Artificial species could methods for the industrial production of medicines, chemicals or even clean energy.
“This is the next important step that we all speak. We can change the genetic code to read, for which they write,” Dr. Venter says, with a big smile.
Impetus for Dr. Venter’s latest target is a subsidy of $ 12 million for the U.S. Department of Energy. Another U.S. $ 30 million, by Dr. Venter and their business partners from different sources, such as several wealthy private investors a new company, Synthetic Genomics Inc., the company in the financing of research on Dr. Venter’s non-profit Research of the institute and holder of the intellectual property rights, the program created.
A number of researchers are speeding toward similar goals. Team at Harvard University and the teams in Japan, to try new versions of E. coli bacteria with totally synthetic genes. At many universities “synthetic biology”, the last word. The students have now learned to program the DNA of bacteria, as if it were a piece of software, a computer.
Scientists have for some 30 years that genes, such as a bacterium. It is the basic discovery behind the biotechnology industry. For example, insulin for diabetics is splices a gene for insulin in a microbe. Dr Venter’s plan is to make this technology for the next stage – the production and combign all the genes necessary for the bacteria to survive. At the moment it is still a shell of live microbes, the genome removed, creating demand, what he, the first man of the species. ”
The biggest obstacle Dr. Venter faces is always brewing work. It is possible that the genome of the team, place it inside the bacterial cell, and observed that nothing happens – analogous to installing a new operating system on a computer and perform with him.
If the cell does “start,” says Dr. Venter believes that the creation of 10,000 applications, a model on the scientific and new functions. It provides a perfect place for clean energy from the sun d ‘hydrogen. Another would be to chew cellulose, the raw material for plants, spit that ethanol be used as fuel for cars, which is massively positive impact on the environment and also the men.
