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Creating artificial life
‘Ban release of synthetic life forms into wild’ Trends Prof Yash
Pal
THIS UNIVERSE |
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Creating artificial life SCIENTISTS have succeeded in creating artificial life in a test tube, in a development which promises to revolutionise biotechnology. The research opens the way for scientists to create new life forms that can be genetically programmed to carry out a variety of functions, such as producing carbon-free fuel or made-to-order vaccines and providing new forms of food and clean water. However, the study also raises ethical concerns about the technology falling into the wrong hands, and, for instance, being used to make biological weapons, or by scientists to “play God” with life. The research team, led by Craig Venter, who previously directed one of the teams which decoded the human genome, said they had created synthetic life in the form of a new species of bacteria that operates entirely under the control of a man-made set of genetic instructions, originally stored on a computer. They synthesised the genome of a bacterial cell and used it to “boot up” the empty cell of another species of bacteria, which then replicated freely as if it were carrying its own set of genetic instructions instead of a set made in a laboratory. “This is the first synthetic cell that’s been made, and we call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromosome, made with four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesiser, starting with information in a computer,” Dr Venter said. “We start with a living cell but the synthetic chromosome totally transforms that living cell to this new synthetic cell,” he added. Dr Venter dreamed of creating artificial life 15 years ago when he led a study that produced the first decoded genome of a microbe. After years of trying to work out the minimal set of genes necessary for life, and many more years trying to overcome the technical difficulties of constructing an entirely artificial genome, he has finally succeeded in realising his vision. “This is both a baby step and a giant step. It’s a giant step because, until this was done, it was only hypothetical that it could work. It’s a baby step in terms of all the distance we have to go before you can buy fuel made from carbon dioxide or have new medicines or new sources of food,” Dr Venter said. Some ethicists, however, expressed concerns. “Venter is not merely copying life artificially ... he is going towards the role of a god — creating artificial life that could never have existed naturally,” said Professor Julian Savulescu, an ethicist at the University of Oxford. Professor John Harris, an expert on biomedical ethics at Manchester University, said: “This is heady stuff which Venter admits has powerful potential for both good and ill. While Venter is very precise about the possible benefits he is not specific about the dangers. This work deserves enthusiasm, but only so long as the risks are given attention commensurate with the benefits.” The milestone, published in the journal Science, was achieved by a team of 24 scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland. They received $40m (£28m) funding. Some came from the US Department of Energy, some from drug companies interested in new ways of making vaccines and other pharmaceuticals and from oil companies keen to develop new sources of energy. The scientists used the published genome of a microbe called Mycoplasma mycoides to construct their own synthetic version in the form of a circular chromosome made of a molecule of DNA composed of a sequence of 1,080,000 “letters” of the four-letter genetic alphabet; this was stitched together from shorter fragments made in a laboratory “gene machine”. The researchers then placed this synthetic chromosome into the cell of another species of bacterium, M. capricolum, which had had its own chromosome removed. After months of trial and error—when one mistake in the million letters led to a three-month delay—the scientists managed to “boot up” these empty cells so that the M. capricolum cells replicated normally, but without any of its own genes or proteins and only with those of M. mycoides. Scientists in Britain applauded the achievement as one of the most important moments in genome research. “(It) is a landmark study that represents a major advance in synthetic biology,” said Professor Paul Freemont of Imperial College London, co-director of the Centre for Synthetic Biology. “This now provides a ‘proof of concept’. The applications of this enabling technology are enormous and one might argue this is a key step in the industrialisation of synthetic biology leading to a new era of biotechnology,” he added. Professor Douglas Kell, chief executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, said the study was an important step in the development of a new area of science. “Synthetic biology is a relatively new field and within the global research community there is some truly avant-garde science happening.” However, other commentators condemned the work, claiming that it is being promoted with unrealistic expectations and could end up creating more problems than it can solve. “What is really dangerous is these scientists’ ambitions for total control over nature, which many people describe as ‘playing God’. The claim of authorship of nature goes hand-in-hand with the claim to monopoly patent rights over it,” said David King of Human Genetics Alert. “Scientists’ understanding of biology falls far short of their technical capabilities. We have already learnt to our cost the risks that gap brings, for the environment, animal welfare and human health,” Dr King said. —
By arrangement with The Independent |
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‘Ban release of synthetic life forms into wild’ ENVIRONMENTALISTS have begun a concerted campaign to ensure that new forms of fears that the life-forms will hasten the extinction of wild species. A Canadian environmental group has already claimed partial victory in trying to impose a global moratorium on scientists such as Craig Venter, the controversial genome entrepreneur who claimed that he had made a synthetic cell in at test-tube controlled by a chromosome created from scratch. The Etc Group, based in Ottawa, said it had helped to formulate a “de facto moratorium” on synthetic biology at a side meeting of the UN Conventional on Biological Diversity, which ended at the weekend in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. A scientific body attached to the convention, called the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice, drew up a proposal on synthetic biology that is likely to result in any release experiments into the wild being banned if adopted by a meeting of environment ministers in Japan this year, the Etc Group said. “The draft adopted by the meeting amounts to a de facto moratorium on the release of synthetic life forms. But the text will remain in ‘square brackets’, meaning that it has not achieved unanimous agreement among the Biological Convention’s 193 member countries at this time,” a spokesman said. The moratorium on any release of synthetic life-forms is likened to the earlier moratoria on “terminator technology”, a suicide gene that prevents GM seeds from being fertile after they are harvested, and ocean fertilisation, an attempt to spread iron into the sea to stimulate the absorption of carbon dioxide from the air. The Etc Group, composed of a handful of activists, has been a thorn in the side of Dr Venter. They have opposed his attempts to patent genes and have been highly critical of his claims that synthetic life-forms could help to solve major environmental problems, such as global warming. “Synthetic biology is a high-risk, profit-driven field, building organisms out of parts that are still poorly understood,” said Jim Thomas, a member of the Etc Group. “We know that lab-created life-forms can escape and become biological weapons, and that their use threatens existing natural biodiversity,” Mr Thomas said. “Most worrying of all, Craig Venter is handing this powerful technology to the likes of BP and Exxon to hasten the commercialisation of synthetic life-forms.” Dr Venter, whose company Synthetic Genomics has received $600m in research and development investment from Exxon Mobil, said last week that his synthetic cell, which he has nicknamed Synthia, although free-living, will survive only in a contained laboratory and there are no plans to use it that could result in it being released to the outside environment. Mundita Lim, a delegate to the Convention on Biological Diversity from the Philippines, said: “We believe that there should be no field release of synthetic life, cell or genome into the environment until thorough scientific assessments have been conducted in a transparent, open and participatory process, involving all parties.” |
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THIS UNIVERSE
Can we drink the water which is produced in neutralisation reaction? I do not know which acid and alkali are being neutralised. What salt the neutralised water contains would depend on that. Everything that is neither acidic nor alkaline is not necessarily tasty or harmless. Better consult a chemist and a pharmacist if you are horribly thirsty. Otherwise, refrain from drinking any products of your chemistry experiments. Why are we unable to see
when we come into a room after a sunny day? Our eyes are very cleverly designed instruments. Beside various other things they have an adjustable iris, or opening hole, to let the light come in to form an image on the retina, which is like a digital screen in a camera. This screen can be spoiled if the light falling on it is very bright, besides the fact that portions with contrasting illumination cannot be discriminated very well. Therefore, again very much like in a normal camera, the opening iris closes to reduce the aperture when we are in very bright environment. After that when we come into a room, where light is not as bright we do not discern dark portions properly. This is slowly corrected because the iris opens up after a while. |
