Scientists one step from artificial life
p2pnet news | Off Topic:- Biologist and entrepreneur Craig Venter says he’s created a synthetic chromosome, "knocking down one of the final hurdles to building the world’s first artificial life form," says Guardian Unlimited.
In the abstract to a paper published today in Science, "We have synthesized a 582,970 bp Mycoplasma genitalium genome," says Venter’s team, going on:
This synthetic genome, named M. genitalium JCVI-1.0, contains all the genes of wild-type M. genitalium G37 except MG408, which was disrupted by an antibiotic marker to block pathogenicity and to allow for selection.
To identify the genome as synthetic, we inserted "watermarks" at intergenic sites known to tolerate transposon insertions. Overlapping "cassettes" of 5 to 7 kb, assembled from chemically synthesized oligonucleotides, were joined by in vitro recombination to produce intermediate assemblies of approximately 24 kb, 72 kb ("1/8 genome"), and 144 kb ("1/4 genome"), which were all cloned as bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) in Escherichia coli.
This marks the first time anyone has made, "such a large strand of hereditary material from off-the-shelf chemical ingredients," says the Washington Post, going on:
"Previous efforts had yielded DNA strands less than one-twentieth the size, and those pieces lacked many of the key biological programs that tell a cell how to stay alive.
"On the basis of earlier experiments, the researchers believe the new, full-length loop would spontaneously ‘boot up’ inside a cell, just as a downloaded operating system can awaken a computer – a potentially historic event that would amount to the creation of the first truly artificial life form."
The next step, "is to insert the synthetic chromosome into a cell, so that it can reproduce and become a new life form," says Guardian Unlimited.
"Venter’s team has already demonstrated that transplanting the genome of one type of bacterium into the cell of another can change the cell’s species, a process his team will now use with the new synthetic chromosome."
Also See:
Guardian Unlimited – Biologist claims significant step towards artificial life, January 25, 2008
Science – Complete Chemical Synthesis, Assembly, and Cloning of a Mycoplasma genitalium Genome, January, 2008
Washington Post – Md. Scientists Build Bacterial Chromosome, January 25, 2008
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January 25th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Ha ha – when I saw this headline I thought it read
“SCIENTOLOGISTS one step away from artficial life”
January 25th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Don’t you mean “SCIENTOLOGISTS one step away from actual intelligence”?