Artificial life form created

Synthia - man-made life!

Mankind had always aspired to control Life in any form. Either through ruling the world, designing lethal weapon or trying to slow down the aging. Dr Craig Venter made a part of this dream come true with Synthia, an self-replicating artificial form of life


By LJILJANA SAMARDŽIĆ
from Sombor, SERBIA


It is common endeavor to see life as something mysterious, always left unsaid and indescribable. People do not have moral or legal right to take away life of other human being, but they have the right to create one. But, how this rule is interpreted and applied when it comes to other living beings on Earth? Some think that it is cruel and unethical to kill an animal even if it's meant for food, and others have standpoint which approves this kind of murder. Since taking away life from living beings is still a dilemma, thus is creating (producing) such a living being. It is hard to forget sheep Dolly, but now there is something even better, say scientists. Accused of playing God's role for breathing a life to bacteria it is possible to imagine what it would be like if a synthetic child had been created.

Man had been striving to create artificial life form for many years. Thus, he'd been trying to take control over life and mystery which life itself provokes. Not so long ago, back in 2008, Venter Institute researchers announced their first success regarding artificial life. They managed to assemble a synthetic Mycoplasma genitalium genome after which they assumed that it would replicate cells in no time. But, they came across many obstacles - "We had to deal with the fact that M. genitalium had an extremely slow growth rate", said Mr. Daniel Gibson, co-author of the study published May 20 in Science regarding latest success. "For every experiment that was done, it took more than a month to get results."

So, by 2008, the Venter Institute team was able to synthesize a small bacterial genome, but they were unable to activate that genome in a cell at that time. Therefore, scientists decided to give a try with less demanding and faster Mycoplasma mycodies and it turned out with positive results.

To be more precise, researches headed by Drs. Craig Venter, Hamilton Smith and Clyde Hutchison have reached the final step in their desire to create the first synthetic bacterial cell (life) called Synthia.

The power of "writing" a life

This final creation took 15 years of research and hard work. "Along the way they had to develop new tools and techniques to construct large segments of genetic code, and learn how to transplant genomes to convert one species to another. The 1.08 million base pair synthetic M. mycoides genome is the largest chemically defined structure ever synthesized in the laboratory", it is stated at www.jcvi.org. This genome has been constructed from four bottles of chemicals that make up DNA and after that it has been "booted up" in a cell to create the first cell controlled completely by a synthetic genome. Although it is called man-made cell, there are opinions stating that Mr. Venter tried to play God and that his creation is nothing new and it represents a copy of God's work. Back in 2007, Guardian published an article whose author claimed:

- The new life form will depend for its ability to replicate itself and metabolise on the molecular machinery of the cell into which it has been injected, and in that sense it will not be a wholly synthetic life form. However, its DNA will be artificial, and it is the DNA that controls the cell and is credited with being the building block of life.

However, researches claim that their creation will help us in solving some of global issues, such as new-age products (biofuel), clean water technology and medicines. They also estimate that constant and intensive dialogues with both, experts and laypeople are needed in order to make this field prosper.

There are disputes regarding even this statement. For instance, Dr Helen Wallace from Genewatch UK, an organization that monitors developments in genetic technologies, said that releasing new organism into the environment could do more harm than good:

- By releasing them into areas of pollution, you're actually releasing a new kind of pollution. We don't know how these organisms will behave in the environment.

Ethical debate

After long history of human battle with nature and against human imperfections such as mortality, growing old, diseases and pollution, scientists finally came up with something which is likely to be a solution to all those problems. But, is this justified and who is eligible enough to decide on that? It is very hard to be objective and to make the right from wrong.

As it could be seen, there are chances to make something positive out of this, something of global importance. But, such delicate matter instantly attracts possibility of being abused. The Venter Institute has answers to this question too. Aware of possible consequences after publishing their work, Venter Institute's policy team organized a series of workshops and public sessions during 20 months to discuss the ethical and social quandaries related to synthetic genomics.

- Over the course of the study, the group explored the risks and benefits of the emerging technology, as well as possible safeguards to prevent abuse, such as bioterrorism.

The ethical discussion is still open and many concluded that there is a serious need for developing new standards of safety and protection from military or terrorist misuse when it comes to crucial researches like this one is.



(Published: 12.06.2010.)