Sam Fraser
05-21-2010, 06:45 AM
Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first synthetic living cell.
The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell.
The resulting microbe then looked and behaved like the species "dictated" by the synthetic DNA.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10132762.stm
Who did this?
The team was led by Dr Craig Venter of the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Maryland and California.
Here's why Dr. Venter is a dangerous man:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/craig-venter-creates-a-cell-with-synthetic-dna-venter-is-an-interesting-character-%C2%A0i-invited-him/
Craig Venter is a bald man with a beard and the tanned, bulky fitness of a sixty-year-old defying his years. He leans across the DHS conference room table as though he owns it. But the meeting isn’t going quite as smoothly as Venter expected.
If anyone represents the promise of biotech, it is Venter. He sees engineered organisms as the key to progress and riches on a vast scale. So he can’t be comfortable with the theme of the meeting.
I am pressing him on risks, not promise. Venter knows more about biotech than almost anyone. If there’s a way to avoid the dangers that come with democratizing genetic engineering, Venter should have it at his fingertips.
“What will stop terrorists from inventing new diseases?” I ask.
I’m thinking of what happened in 2001, when an Australian research project went frighteningly wrong. The researchers were trying to create a rodent contraceptive from the mousepox virus. They spliced a gene into the mousepox virus. They didn’t want to hurt the mice, so they injected the engineered virus only into mice bred for resistance to mousepox. And, adding suspenders to their belt, they vaccinated some of the mice for mousepox before administering the injection.
As a contraceptive, it turned out, the new virus was an overachiever. Dead mice don’t have sex, and dead mice were what the virus produced. The new gene turned the formerly mild mousepox virus into a killer, overriding the genetic resistance of every unvaccinated mouse. And then it turned on the vaccinated mice, killing half of them for good measure. If just one researcher made just one mistake as bad as that with human subjects, I tell Venter, even nations that had stockpiled vaccines would be destroyed. How do we know, I say, that well-intentioned hobbyists, not to mention hapless terrorists, won’t produce pathogens that are far more lethal and contagious than they intended? …
I’m hoping Venter can see something I’ve missed, some reason why democratizing this technology won’t ultimately empower the worst in human behavior as well as the best. Or at least some way to keep his beloved technology from putting humanity at risk.
I wait. Venter leans in, clears his throat. He smiles the winning smile that has charmed reporters and government funders for more than a decade.
“My, my, don’t you have an imagination,” he beams.
The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell.
The resulting microbe then looked and behaved like the species "dictated" by the synthetic DNA.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10132762.stm
Who did this?
The team was led by Dr Craig Venter of the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Maryland and California.
Here's why Dr. Venter is a dangerous man:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/craig-venter-creates-a-cell-with-synthetic-dna-venter-is-an-interesting-character-%C2%A0i-invited-him/
Craig Venter is a bald man with a beard and the tanned, bulky fitness of a sixty-year-old defying his years. He leans across the DHS conference room table as though he owns it. But the meeting isn’t going quite as smoothly as Venter expected.
If anyone represents the promise of biotech, it is Venter. He sees engineered organisms as the key to progress and riches on a vast scale. So he can’t be comfortable with the theme of the meeting.
I am pressing him on risks, not promise. Venter knows more about biotech than almost anyone. If there’s a way to avoid the dangers that come with democratizing genetic engineering, Venter should have it at his fingertips.
“What will stop terrorists from inventing new diseases?” I ask.
I’m thinking of what happened in 2001, when an Australian research project went frighteningly wrong. The researchers were trying to create a rodent contraceptive from the mousepox virus. They spliced a gene into the mousepox virus. They didn’t want to hurt the mice, so they injected the engineered virus only into mice bred for resistance to mousepox. And, adding suspenders to their belt, they vaccinated some of the mice for mousepox before administering the injection.
As a contraceptive, it turned out, the new virus was an overachiever. Dead mice don’t have sex, and dead mice were what the virus produced. The new gene turned the formerly mild mousepox virus into a killer, overriding the genetic resistance of every unvaccinated mouse. And then it turned on the vaccinated mice, killing half of them for good measure. If just one researcher made just one mistake as bad as that with human subjects, I tell Venter, even nations that had stockpiled vaccines would be destroyed. How do we know, I say, that well-intentioned hobbyists, not to mention hapless terrorists, won’t produce pathogens that are far more lethal and contagious than they intended? …
I’m hoping Venter can see something I’ve missed, some reason why democratizing this technology won’t ultimately empower the worst in human behavior as well as the best. Or at least some way to keep his beloved technology from putting humanity at risk.
I wait. Venter leans in, clears his throat. He smiles the winning smile that has charmed reporters and government funders for more than a decade.
“My, my, don’t you have an imagination,” he beams.