Artificial life created

[Dante]

The first synthetic life form has been created in the laboratory of Dr Craig Venter of the J Craig Venter Institute in the USA. Modelled on an already extant bacterium but possessed of several 'watermarks' in its DNA, the creature's DNA code is not entirely novel, but it is entirely articifial. No pieces were inserted from natural organisms, or so we're told. In other words the work started with chemicals, not naturally-created proteins.

Hailed in some papers as "God 2.0," the culmination of a 15-year study has been met with mixed reactions. There are those who welcome the news as a vast step forward comparable to splitting the atom. Venter himself has refered to the work as a "baby step" in terms of development, the step that proves the validity of the procedure. What comes next is the application of the theory, finding the simplest possible genome and then adding additional functionality; he cites examples such as production of fuel, medicines or cleaning up the atmosphere. This differs from modern biotechnology in that current procedures modify existing organisms rather than creating new ones, but the end result would be largely the same.

There are of course those who warn caution for such reasons as corruption of natural life should synthetic organisms escape, the danger of custom-designed pathogens and simply questioning the ethics of the situation. Others point out that the study was conducted by a commerical organisation, motivated by profit, and that should the procedures be patented (as some attempted to do with the human genome project) it would choke off development by other groups. There is certainly a great deal of discussion.

I for one welcome the news. Putting aside for a moment the notion of progress for progress' sake, and acknowledging that current methods are still superior when it comes to biotechnology production, this represents a fantastic opportunity and an exciting proof of concept. Now that it has been done once, it can be done again, but better. Lethal mutations have been found and ironed out, problems dealt with that will clear the way for future experiments and organisms. No longer obliged simply to copy what surrounds us, we have the potential to create entirely new creatures with entirely new properties. Though it may yet prove to be too unwieldy for the current age, the work conducted by Venter and his colleagues will, ideally, lay the foundations for a new generation of unique and possibly useful creations. As for the concerns, there have been ethical reviews and social reviews throughout the project, and there will continue to be. Venter is being very open about his work. I'm not saying there won't be stumbling blocks, perhaps big ones, but the potential far outweighs the risk.

[athanasios]

Life evolved, no creation accepted! It is fake. Don't you agree SandTicker? :P

[gryphon]

That's no news. They did that years ago. NaMp, how old are you again now...?

[SandChigger]

That's no news. They did that years ago.

Really? Similar but different?

[Venter] and his colleagues had previously made a synthetic bacterial genome, and transplanted the genome of one bacterium into another.

Now, the scientists have put both methods together, to create what they call a "synthetic cell", although only its genome is truly synthetic.

It will be interesting when they can synthesize an artificial cell host. :)

[Dante]

One could argue that would be more work than necessary. A host is just so much cellular machinery that the genome will modify to suit its own needs (and has done so already). Finding one that is similar enough (has all the requisite parts) to be used as a home for an artificial nucleus shouldn't be too difficult.

Having said that, it may become necessary if there are unforseen complications. For example, mitochondria are vital to energy production in many organisms, but contain DNA of their own and reproduce independently of cellular mitosis. Simply throwing a nucleus into a cell full of handy bits may not suffice in more complex organisms, those bits will possibly also have to be tailor made. Note that I do say unforseen complications, the nucleus-throwing technique has worked rather well so far. But even if it doesn't, the nucleus is the most complicated part. Synthesising anything else shouldn't be nearly as challenging as that first step (famous last words).

I think gryphon was making an allusion to NaMp's origins rather than making a serious point, but I could be wrong...

[chatfsh]

As the article indicates, the real trick here will be to

[SandChigger]

One could argue that would be more work than necessary. A host is just so much cellular machinery that the genome will modify to suit its own needs (and has done so already). Finding one that is similar enough (has all the requisite parts) to be used as a home for an artificial nucleus shouldn't be too difficult.

True, but it would still be cool to be able to say we constructed something new, from the ground up. (Or should that be "from the dust up"?  ::)) Then, who needs Nature? Eventually we'll outgod the fictitious deities. ;D

I think gryphon was making an allusion to NaMp's origins rather than making a serious point, but I could be wrong...

Hmm?

[athanasios]

Intelligent Design?

[MrFlibble]

True, but it would still be cool to be able to say we constructed something new, from the ground up. (Or should that be "from the dust up"?  ::)) Then, who needs Nature?

The tricky part is that, since humanity is a product of evolution, it can also be considered a natural force of sorts. So unless humans learn to create stuff literally from nothing, they are still bound by natural laws.

[athanasios]

You stretch it too much MrFlibble. :-

[chatfsh]

The tricky part is that, since humanity is a product of evolution

According to the weakest of theories.

So unless humans learn to create stuff literally from nothing...

Now that's when I'll be impressed.  But until then...*yawn*

[Dante]

Hwi, jusht drop it, alright? Ve gets dot hyu don't beleev in evolushun by natural selection, ve gets dot hyu hold science und scientific progress in contempt, hyour ever-babblink broken record has made dat more dan clear by now. Zo if hyu'd like to jusht take hyour ignorance uf pritty moch everyting und piss off out uf my threads, Hy'd appreciate it. Mmkay? Jusht shot op onless hyu hef someting new or insightful to say, because lets face it hyu never vill.

Now, on the subject of humans being natural organisms themselves, this is true but I think it neglects the meat of the matter. If a tiger gathered iron, carbon, oxygen and a whole host of other elements and made itself another tiger out of them, we'd call that pretty extraordinary. So while one could stretch the definition of natural and say that anything we do is natural as we are products of nature, it would still be true that the method used was a decidedly novel way to go about creating life. Living organisms have not been made in that way ever before, not even back when life was first starting. It's a triumph of new methods, whether natural or synthetic.

[chatfsh]

Oh, it

[SandChigger]

::)

[Edric O]

Calling it "artificial life" is extremely misleading, if not outright false. This is not artificial life, it's artificial DNA. Which was inserted into a pre-existing cell and replaced that cell's natural DNA.

True artificial life would mean creating a whole cell from scratch, not just the DNA.

[Dante]

Nevertheless, it's a whole functioning cell. It lives. And reproduces. The peripherals of the cell will come in time. To consider a metaphor, they've made a brain and placed it in a pre-existing body. Making the body, while no cakewalk, is practically guaranteed to follow. That's what's important here: proof of concept.

[chatfsh]

No. Your metaphor overstates Dr. Venter

[athanasios]

If life isn't the DNA, then what is it? The point is: Did they invent any new sequence or they just copied? Since they did the latter they didn't create artificial life.

[Edric O]

Yes, if they can make DNA, it's practically guaranteed that they will be able to build a whole cell. Eventually. But they haven't done it yet. That's the point. It's quite clear that artificial life will be built at some point in the future. And making artificial DNA is an important milestone. But it is only a milestone.

So, in other words, let's not get all that excited just yet. Besides, making an artificial copy of natural DNA doesn't have any practical applications. When we get to the point where we have custom-made DNA that does not occur in any natural species, then we can get excited.

Well, maybe "excited" isn't the right word. I was thinking more along the lines of "frightened at the possibility of unimaginably devastating biological weapons that could easily exterminate the human species." I mean, really, do we want to have the technology to create a bastard child of Ebola and the Bubonic Plague that can spread as easily as the common cold?

[Wolf]

First, I want to throw my support behind Flibble's short, but absolutely sweet post, and excoriate the author of this:

According to the weakest of theories.

Really? What, you don't think it works? Talk to a dog-breeder. Plant a garden. Find out why turkeys look the way they do. The evidence favoring evolution via natural selection is everywhere. You don't need to lash out at even the most tangentially-related comments because of your limited ability to conceive of a higher power.

As for this cell business, I'm much more interested in the software/wetware issues. If a cell can be programmed as a computer would, and a cell can evolve, what does that say about the potential for [organic-cell driven?] computers? Or for the future of things like... artificial intelligence? Perhaps, the elusive component of truly self-synthesizing software might be found somewhere in the secrets of organic "computer chips." I don't think the implications of this breakthrough are limited to the biological...

[Dante]

No. Your metaphor overstates Dr. Venter�s accomplishment and is therefore an inappropriate analogy.

It was a fine metaphor. Shut up, I don't care what you think.

The point is: Did they invent any new sequence or they just copied? Since they did the latter they didn't create artificial life.

"Artificial" is not the same as "new." The point is not that an original organism has been invented, but that the self-replicating core of an organism has been made from scratch. What is that if not artificial?

Arguably, the DNA is original enough in that it contained sequences not found in the natural world. Granted these were non-coding and in places somewhat whimsical, but even so. Maybe it would be better to say that when we have created an organism that phenotypically differs from any other organism we can start celebrating. I suspect that the reason nobody's saying that is because it's a bit of a mouthful.

As for biological warfare, well all technology comes with risks. And there's comfort to be found in myxomatosis. That's a particularly virulent disease of rabbits, but I'm sure you knew that. A specifically violent strain was deliberately released in Britain after the war in the hopes of wiping out rabbits around farms. At first it was a great success, experiencing near or actual 100% death tolls. The rabbit population was all but anihilated.

Now, one would expect the rabbits with greatest resistance (say 1 in every 1000, for the sake of argument) to have a greater chance of surviving, and they in turn would pass their resistance genes on to their offspring. This is called natural selection, and would lead to those resistance genes becoming "fixed" in the population. In other words, sooner or later all rabbits would have those resistance genes and the disease would not be as effective as before. This is in fact what happened, however there is a much more important aspect: diseases too are subject to natural selection. In fact the race between diseases and hosts to develop and counter-develop new strategies is one of the most facinating aspects of the- but I digress.

One would expect that when faced with greater rabbit resistance, the disease (it's a virus, if you're interested) would be forced to grow stronger in order to overcome it, but it didn't. In fact, myxomatosis today is a great deal weaker than the strain first released in the 1950's.

The logic is this: The virulent strain of the virus wiped out entire populations. However, weaker examples did not. This only makes sense, a weaker strain would not have as great an effect as a strong strain. The strong strain killed all of its hosts and therefore died out. The weak strain was unable to kill all of its hosts and therefore some (the ones with resistance genes) survived. The net result was that the rabbits became stronger and the virus became weaker because killing all your hosts is not a sensible career move.

Now myxomatosis is no smallpox, but it demonstrates the principles involved. Even if a brand new artificial supervirus was created and released, once out in the wild it would follow the same natural laws as other diseases. It could kill millions, possibly billions, but the chances of it killing everyone are very small.

...Maybe that's not a comfort to you but it is to me.

And finally, thank you Wolf for bringing up an original point. Organic computers are a ways off yet but I'm very eager to see them. We could even take custom-designed cells and make custom-designed creatures. Chairdogs, perhaps.

[SandChigger]

Maybe they could even create artificial board members to replace some of the obviously defective natural ones! :D

[MrFlibble]

So while one could stretch the definition of natural and say that anything we do is natural as we are products of nature, it would still be true that the method used was a decidedly novel way to go about creating life. Living organisms have not been made in that way ever before, not even back when life was first starting. It's a triumph of new methods, whether natural or synthetic.

Oh, I never wanted to argue the opposite. In fact, my only point was about the use of terms "natural" and "artificial". I've always adhered to a broader definition of "natural" that includes human activities and products thereof.

According to the weakest of theories.

Just to please the lady, I'll rephrase myself:

"The tricky part is that, since humanity is a part of nature, it can also be considered a natural force of sorts."

Basically, it doesn't change the purport of what I said.

[chatfsh]

The lady is well pleased, MrFlibble. :)

********

Despite Dr. Venter

[Dante]

When Venter said that, he meant that he hadn't magically made something new with no recourse to the natural world; he hadn't pieced together primordial chemicals with a bit of electrical glue. He did not mean that he hadn't created life from unliving chemicals, because that is what he did. Four bottles of chemicals, or so we're told. Misquoting people out of context and then misunderstanding your own misquote is quite a feat. Also congratulations, you paraphrased the introduction to the thread. "Baby step" Venter called it and baby step it is. Now please stop talking, you've somehow contrived to embarass yourself further, something which I have to confess I did not think possible.