Any type of life. I'm talking about creating life in a lab, from scratch, an artificial life form.
Here is a recent article I found from Jan '08:
US scientists close to creating artificial life: study
US scientists have taken a major step toward creating the first ever artificial life form by synthetically reproducing the DNA of a bacteria, according to a study published Thursday.
The move, which comes after five years of research, is seen as the penultimate stage in the endeavor to create an artificial life form based entirely on a man-made DNA genome -- something which has tantalized scientists and sci-fi writers for years.
"Through dedicated teamwork we have shown that building large genomes is now feasible and scalable so that important applications such as biofuels can be developed," said Hamilton Smith, from the J.Craig Venter Institute, in the study published in Science.
The research has been carried out at the laboratories of the controversial celebrity US scientist Craig Venter, who has hailed artificial life forms as a potential remedy to illness and global warming.
However, the prospect of engineering artificial life forms is highly controversial and arouses heated debate over the ethics and its potential ramifications.
It is one of the Holy Grails of science, but also one that stirs deep fears as foreseen in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel "Brave New World" in which natural human reproduction is eschewed in favor of babies grown artificially in laboratories.
Venter said in a statement: "This extraordinary accomplishment is a technological marvel that was only made possible because of the unique and accomplished ... team."
His researchers had "dedicated the last several years to designing and perfecting new methods and techniques that we believe will become widely used to advance the field of synthetic genomics," he added.
Lead author Dan Gibson said the team had completed the second step in a three-step process to create a synthetic organism.
In the final stage of their research which they are already working on, the Maryland-based team will attempt to create a bacteria based purely on the synthetic genome sequence of the Mycoplasma genitalium bacteria.
The bacteria, which causes certain sexually transmitted diseases, has one of the least complex DNA structures of any life form, composed of just 580 genes.
In contrast, the human genome has some 30,000.
The chromosome which Venter and his team has created is known as Mycoplasma laboratorium and, in the final step of the process, will be transplanted into a living cell where it should "take control," effectively becoming a new life form.
"When we started this work several years ago, we knew it was going to be difficult because we were treading into unknown territory," said Smith.
But other scientists remain cautious, saying Venter and his team are still a long way from being able to create artificial life.
And ETC, a Canadian watchdog group that uncovered Venter's patent application for M. laboratorium, worries about accountability.
"Venter is claiming bragging rights to the world's longest length of synthetic DNA, but size isn't everything. The important question is not 'how long?', but 'how wise?'" said Jim Thomas from ETC.
"While synthetic biology is speeding ahead in the lab and in the marketplace, societal debate and regulatory oversight is stalled, and there has been no meaningful or inclusive discussion on how to govern synthetic biology in a safe and just way."
Eckard Wimmer, professor of molecular biology at New York University, said it was clear from Venter's study that the team had not yet created artificial life.
He said he was left with "the unpleasant feeling whether or not the synthetic DNA was indeed proper and able for biological function."
His fears were echoed by Helen Wallace, a biologist and spokeswoman for GeneWatch UK, who said that while Venter's team has managed a technical feat, it is some way from being artificial life.
"Venter is not God ... He's a long way from creating life," she told AFP.
"It's a type of genetic engineering which would allow people to make much bigger genetic changes, which means that in the future you could create organisms with new gene sequences."
Venter: US scientist with ambitions to create life
Craig Venter is a maverick US scientist and pioneer of biotechnology with a single over-riding ambition -- to create the first form of artificial life to aid humanity battle 21st century problems.
Venter says his cutting-edge research could help resolve some of the world's most pressing ills, by creating man-made bacteria which could help tackle such issues as dwindling fuel resources and mounting garbage dumps.
But to his critics, the 61-year-old researcher is a megalomaniac determined to write his name into history, and along the way slap a patent on artificial life-forms.
In 2001, Venter almost beat a public-sector international consortium in being first to decode the human genome, and in early 2007 his institute unveiled the first fully-sequenced genome of an individual: himself.
His controversial approach and his thirst to be the first to crack one of science's Holy Grails has driven his research on.
In 2006, his laboratory, the J. Craig Venter Institute, filed for a US patent on a single-cell organism, claiming exclusive ownership of a set of essential genes and a synthetic "free-living organism that can grow and replicate."
The single cell organism, which the Canadian bioethics organization ETC Group has coined "Synthia," is piloted by a chromosome with just 381 genes, the limit necessary to sustain the life of the bacteria so it can feed and reproduce.
The ETC watchdog publicized the patent application, which would apply in the United States and 100 or so other countries, in June 2007.
Venter told the British daily The Guardian in October that the synthetic chromosome built using chemicals in a laboratory would be "a very important philosophical step in the history of our species."
"We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before," Venter said.
He has sought to address some of the ethical and regulatory concerns by issuing a kind of white paper with recommendations for policymakers.
But specialists say that, outside the lab, the world is totally unprepared for the looming dawn of synbio, as synthetic biology is called.
And watchdog groups are not buying either. They want national government and international organizations to take the lead.
"We've seen a lot of hype from him. Venter is not God ... He's a long way from creating life," said Helen Wallace, a biologist and spokesperson for GeneWatch UK.
"It's a type of genetic engineering which would allow people to make much bigger genetic changes, which means that in the future you could create organisms with new gene sequences."
But she added that "the consequences can be unknown" for the environment.
Venter, named by Time magazine in 2007 as one of the world's 100 most influential people, is also a prolific author having published some 200 scientific articles.
He is also a member of the National American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Two related threads from this forum (Hutch and ThaG):
http://www.siccness.net/vb/showthread.php?t=267560
http://www.siccness.net/vb/showthread.php?t=255409
