Artificial life likely in 3 to 10 years

[ThaG]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070820/ap_on_sc/artificial_life_5

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Mon Aug 20, 1:49 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer.
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Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life."

"It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways — in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."

That first cell of synthetic life — made from the basic chemicals in DNA — may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you'll have to look in a microscope to see it.

"Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe," Bedau said. "This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role."

And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.

Bedau figures there are three major hurdles to creating synthetic life:

• A container, or membrane, for the cell to keep bad molecules out, allow good ones, and the ability to multiply.

• A genetic system that controls the functions of the cell, enabling it to reproduce and mutate in response to environmental changes.

• A metabolism that extracts raw materials from the environment as food and then changes it into energy.

One of the leaders in the field, Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School, predicts that within the next six months, scientists will report evidence that the first step — creating a cell membrane — is "not a big problem." Scientists are using fatty acids in that effort.

Szostak is also optimistic about the next step — getting nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, to form a working genetic system.

His idea is that once the container is made, if scientists add nucleotides in the right proportions, then Darwinian evolution could simply take over.

"We aren't smart enough to design things, we just let evolution do the hard work and then we figure out what happened," Szostak said.

In Gainesville, Fla., Steve Benner, a biological chemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution is attacking that problem by going outside of natural genetics. Normal DNA consists of four bases — adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine (known as A,C,G,T) — molecules that spell out the genetic code in pairs. Benner is trying to add eight new bases to the genetic alphabet.

Bedau said there are legitimate worries about creating life that could "run amok," but there are ways of addressing it, and it will be a very long time before that is a problem.

"When these things are created, they're going to be so weak, it'll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab," he said. "But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen."

(This version CORRECTS Bedau quote to "shed new light")

 

[2-0-Sixx]

Good stuff. I remember reading about the hurdle of creating a cell membrane not too long ago and coming to the conclusion that it's only a matter of time. The rest will follow.

3 to 10 years so about right.

 

[Hemp]

do you guys believe the self is physical as a chair and table are?

 

[2-0-Sixx]

ughh, obviously a lil more complex than pieces of wood screwed together

 

[ThaG]

do you guys believe the self is physical as a chair and table are?

1. what exactly is "self"?

2. why should it be non-physical?

3. what is non-physical?

in short - we are as physical as a chair and a table are

BTW, another interesting this I just read:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/08/your_mamas_soul_doesnt_love_yo.php#more

 

[ThaG]

ughh, obviously a lil more complex than pieces of wood screwed together

depends on how you define complexity, those pieces of wood were alive some time ago

and it would be nothing else but arrogance to claim we are more complex than plants

 

[2-0-Sixx]

true, maybe I was a bit confused on the wording of the question asked.

We really don't need to break it down further, but obviously pieces of wood were alive at some time. My point was comparing living humans (I assume that's what he meant by "self") to a table is kind of retarded.

 

[GTS]

"And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste."

This part was interesting. Obviously that is going to be down the road well after the 3 yrs, but what kinda life forms would those be?

 

[ThaG]

BTW lots of plants have much more genes than we do, we have about 20,000, while rice (Oryza sativa) has 45-55,000 and it is not an isolated example

Now in terms of different cell types we have more, but it will always be comparing apples and oranges when you try to say which organism is "more complex"

Evolution is not a ladder on top of which is the human species

 

[ThaG]

"And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste."

This part was interesting. Obviously that is going to be down the road well after the 3 yrs, but what kinda life forms would those be?

I'll try to explain - there is the field of synthetic biology which deals with creating artificial life and which is still in its infancy and there are other scientists, mostly chemists who try to engineer enzymes, i.e. create proteins that have properties not seen in the wild

When you combine the two, you can make a lot of useful stuff, for example an artificial cell which produces an enzyme that degrades a particular type of toxic waste while in the same time is engineered in such a way that this is what it dedicates all its resources (which means maximum efficiency) and is too weak to be able to escape in the wild and cause problems (which could happen if you try to grow plastic eating bacteria for example)

This is just an example

The whole field of organic synthesis will be completely transformed because you will not have to perform tedious manual operations to produce mere milligrams of your precious compound at an astronomical cost and after days of exhaustive work in the lab, you will just design the enzymes, put them in the artificial cells and let them do the work for you

Easier, faster, cheaper

Why you can't really do that today - because the bacteria we're working with are not so easy to engineer - sometimes you try to overexpress a regular human protein in E. coli and for some unknown reason it is toxic, messes up with the bacteria's metabolism and you just can't get it to work

These problems will be largely solved in artificial systems

 

[Hemp]

true, maybe I was a bit confused on the wording of the question asked.

We really don't need to break it down further, but obviously pieces of wood were alive at some time. My point was comparing living humans (I assume that's what he meant by "self") to a table is kind of retarded.

im saying the self that you know as 206, that spark of individuality unlike any other physical object.
thats the self im talkin about.

 

[Fucky McFuckerson]

What are scientists, the cable company?