Thread: Synthetic Life

http://www.world-science.net/otherne...mycoplasma.htm

A research institute has applied for a patent on what could be the first largely artificial organism. And people should be alarmed, claims an advocacy group that is trying to shoot down the bid.

The idea of owning a species breaches “a societal boundary,” said Pat Mooney of the Ottawa, Canadabased ETC Group, which is asking the patent applicants to drop their claim. Creating and owning an organism, he added, means that “for the first time, God has competition.”

His group claims credit for spurring the European Patent Office last month to revoke a patent on genetically modified soybeans by St. Louis, Mo.based Monsanto Co., after a 13year legal challenge by ETC.

The artificial organism, a mere microbe, is the brainchild of researchers at the Rockville, Md.based J. Craig Venter Institute. The organization is named for its founder and CEO, the geneticist who led the private sector race to map the human genome in the late 1990s.

The researchers filed their patent claim on the artificial organism and on its genome. Genetically modified life forms have been patented before; but this is the first patent claim for a creature whose genome might be created chemically from scratch, Mooney said.

Scientists at the institute designed the bacterium to have a “minimal genome”—the smallest set of genes any organism can live on.

The project, which began in the early 2000s, was partly a philosophical exercise: to help define life itself better by identifying its barebones requirements. But it was also fraught with commercial possibilities: if one could reliably recreate a standardized, minimal life form, other useful genes could be added in as needed for various purposes.

For instance, “If we made an organism that produced fuel, that could be the first billion or trilliondollar organism,” said Venter in the June 4 issue of Newsweek magazine. The scientists based the design on the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium, in which they had identified an estimated 265 to 350 core genes required for life.

Other researchers, pursuing similar research with other species, have since claimed to be able to reduce this socalled minimal gene somewhat further. The boundary of what’s really the “minimum” gets fuzzy because some of these pareddown creatures are so genetically challenged that they hang on to life only with a lot of help.

In their U.S. patent application published May 31, Institute scientists chose a somewhat more robust 381 to 386 genes as their “minimal genome” for a hypothetical microbe, based on M. genitalium, but dubbed Mycoplasma laboratorium.

In practice, the organism is “being patented for what it is not,” ETC said in a statement this week.

In the patent application, the scientists also discussed the possibility of creating the genes from scratch using chemical methods, then injecting these into a cell whose own genome has been removed. Whether that has actually been done yet is unclear, but “many people think Venter’s company has the scientific expertise to do the job,” said Mooney.

“The same patent application has been published internationally to be submitted at over 100 national patent offices,” said ETC’s Jim Thomas in an email.

The Venter Institute did not respond to requests for comment. But Venter and colleagues have argued that the strippeddown cell or other synthetic microbes could be useful in tasks ranging from generating cheap energy to aiding in agriculture and climate change remediation.

By creating a manmade organism as a platform for other genes to be added at will, like software on a computer, “Venter’s enterprises are positioning themselves to be the Microsoft of synthetic biology,” ETC said in a statement.

The organization claimed there could be drawbacks to allowing one company to monopolize this information. For instance, the microbe could be harnessed to build a virulent pathogen, Thomas said.

It could be a blow for “open source” biology – the idea that researchers should have free access to the fundamental tools and components of synthetic biology, the new and growing science of redesigning and rebuilding natural biological systems from the ground up for various purposes.

“Before these claims go forward, society must consider their farreaching social, ethical and environmental impacts,” Thomas wrote in the email. In its statement, the ETC Group said it will be writing to Venter, to the U.S. Patent Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization urging them to quash the patent effort until such a public debate takes place.

Well, looks like this went down like a lead balloon....

*edit*
I don't know why this is in tech talk, actually
must have been a reason, I'm sure
*edit*

anyway,
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

WASHINGTON (AP) - Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer.

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."

Reminds me of blade runner. It is an interesting concept, owning an organism, but it wouldn't be much different if someone were to patent a dog breed for instance which doesn't seem that far fetched. Especially when you take in to account the fact that patents only give you exclusive rights for 20 years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20....climatechange

Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.

The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes. It is certain to provoke heated debate about the ethics of creating new species and could unlock the door to new energy sources and techniques to combat global warming.

Mr Venter told the Guardian he thought this landmark 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".

The Guardian can reveal that a team of 20 top scientists assembled by Mr Venter, led by the Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith, has already constructed a synthetic chromosome, a feat of virtuoso bio-engineering never previously achieved. Using lab-made chemicals, they have painstakingly stitched together a chromosome that is 381 genes long and contains 580,000 base pairs of genetic code.

The DNA sequence is based on the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium which the team pared down to the bare essentials needed to support life, removing a fifth of its genetic make-up. The wholly synthetically reconstructed chromosome, which the team have christened Mycoplasma laboratorium, has been watermarked with inks for easy recognition.

It is then transplanted into a living bacterial cell and in the final stage of the process it is expected to take control of the cell and in effect become a new life form. The team of scientists has already successfully transplanted the genome of one type of bacterium into the cell of another, effectively changing the cell's species. Mr Venter said he was "100% confident" the same technique would work for the artificially created chromosome.

The new life form will depend for its ability to replicate itself and metabolise on the molecular machinery of the cell into which it has been injected, and in that sense it will not be a wholly synthetic life form. However, its DNA will be artificial, and it is the DNA that controls the cell and is credited with being the building block of life.

Mr Venter said he had carried out an ethical review before completing the experiment. "We feel that this is good science," he said. He has further heightened the controversy surrounding his potential breakthrough by applying for a patent for the synthetic bacterium.

Pat Mooney, director of a Canadian bioethics organisation, ETC group, said the move was an enormous challenge to society to debate the risks involved. "Governments, and society in general, is way behind the ball. This is a wake-up call - what does it mean to create new life forms in a test-tube?"

He said Mr Venter was creating a "chassis on which you could build almost anything. It could be a contribution to humanity such as new drugs or a huge threat to humanity such as bio-weapons".

Mr Venter believes designer genomes have enormous positive potential if properly regulated. In the long-term, he hopes they could lead to alternative energy sources previously unthinkable. Bacteria could be created, he speculates, that could help mop up excessive carbon dioxide, thus contributing to the solution to global warming, or produce fuels such as butane or propane made entirely from sugar.

"We are not afraid to take on things that are important just because they stimulate thinking," he said. "We are dealing in big ideas. We are trying to create a new value system for life. When dealing at this scale, you can't expect everybody to be happy."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299857,00.html

Shocking. Makes you really think about the possibilities of where we really may have came from.

I've been following this for a while
(not that anybody seems that interested )

http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=37679

yikes!

I mean, ouch. if synthetic DNA material could 'attack' pre-existing DNA and mutate something that is already alive - wow - the potentials. I'm kinda scared of what weapons this could turn into. And even if this new science is used for medicine, we still barely understand human DNA and how it affects us.

and when patents are involved. I mean, if they found a cure for cancer - do you think having a patent is beneficial? I'm not convinced patents should be involved when something is big and can effect mankind on a whole

Makes me think of the xbox360 game Bioshock

FOXnews! I simply can't believe that faux news, we distort you decide, is going to tell me everything. You can guarantee they have a motive for this report. And as usual it's not to be a good informing innocent caring media to educate you on scientific developments. That's not how it works in my experience. savy?

A scientist who built a synthetic chromosome from laboratory chemicals is expected to announce the creation of a new species, the first new artificial life form on Earth, British newspaper The Guardian reported Sunday.

It's not as easy for a scientist to just study and announce discoveries at random with full support of media, soon as they progress something which interests them for humanity. That's exactly how it doesn't work. They work for someone in particular as part of some funded group and the outsourcing of information is always very intricately woven into classifications throughout the organizations.

Think of all the crazy biological secret military developments that haven't being annouced. Fox news isn't going to report when something is discovered in all cases. Because it's classified. The philadelphia experiment is not fox news material. if you get the drift. I find it absolutely pointless to follow some sidetracked contained development of "new discoveries" for public consumption.

The only reason I even look at fox news is to observe the propaganda patterns and techniques they are using on everyone that is buying it. And compare it to the reality of what is happening and learn from it.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being fooled. I know it's a learning process. And I respect that. But I also realize that what paradigm I am tuning into with fox news is certainly not one of reality. But it is serving a special purpose as I said for public relations and consumption. Since it's all about lieing though I am against it. We don't have freedom of the press and we havn't had full transparency for a long time. Until the internet came along and people like me had a say and also had the ability to communicate with others without distortion. Hence researching things on the net fully reveals the media paradigm for what it is. Totally false.

And ofcourse we didn't evolve from this planet. It's a ridiculous assertion for anyone who has studied the complexity and processes of DNA.

Is it science? Yes. Is it new? No. What is the purpose of it then?

To challenge us.

Research Research Research. Verify the truth.

Originally Posted by blade5x

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299857,00.html

Shocking. Makes you really think about the possibilities of where we really may have came from.

Wait...watch...and take notes...as to how we succeed in slowly replacing God.

Originally Posted by Oneironaut_Jeff777

Wait...watch...and take notes...as to how we succeed in slowly replacing God.

Mathematically, you can't replace something that doesn't exist. This achievement is a great spice for atheist versus theist discussions.

Don't come up and claim that, if we study the DNA enough, we'll find out evolution isn't possible. It has been proven possible. If it happened is another thing, though. (although closely related)

You go study biology yourself and get some sense into that brain [sarcasm] if you have one of course [/sarcasm]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...121601900.html

Nice link, Y.

Originally Posted by blade5x

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299857,00.html

Shocking. Makes you really think about the possibilities of where we really may have came from.

OMG, that really is shocking. They covered that on Fox News?