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Synthetic Life

  • Thread starter Brokken
  • Start date
I've read a little bit about this but haven't gotten a chance to look in to it... I love Ted Talks, so I'll download the talk some soon and take a look.

My initial thoughts: Why, oh why, of all the people/institutions to do this, why Craig Venter? It's like Monsanto making a plant that could feed the world... :rolleyes:
 
hmmm..I dont know..
first of all, the concept alone is really scary..*natural* mutant bacteria are bad enough..

second, its not really *wholly* synthetic..only one small part of it..
it still needs 99.9% of a real bacteria to "live"..
its not really a "synthetic cell"..as they claim..
sounds like only ONE chromosome was created in the computer..

Isnt it like putting an artificial heart in a human and saying "we have created a synthetic human"?
yeah, its cool and all, but its not really "a synthetic organism"

(maybe a better analogy would be a synthetic brain in a human! ;) but even then, you still havent created "Data" from Star Trek....although I suppose this computer generated chromosome is the first step to getting there! ;)

Scot
 
hmmm..I dont know..
first of all, the concept alone is really scary..*natural* mutant bacteria are bad enough..

second, its not really *wholly* synthetic..only one small part of it..
it still needs 99.9% of a real bacteria to "live"..
its not really a "synthetic cell"..as they claim..
sounds like only ONE chromosome was created in the computer..

Isnt it like putting an artificial heart in a human and saying "we have created a synthetic human"?
yeah, its cool and all, but its not really "a synthetic organism"

(maybe a better analogy would be a synthetic brain in a human! ;) but even then, you still havent created "Data" from Star Trek....although I suppose this computer generated chromosome is the first step to getting there! ;)

Scot


I see what you're saying and agree that large portions of the cell are still natural and 'borrowed' but the synthesis of these should be easy by comparison. If we can get on a computer and type analogous pairs of DNA like we would a computer program and create wholy new organisms and then leave behind the biological equivalent of "Killroy was here", that sounds pretty synthetic to me. To use and modify your analogy: it would be more like designing a better heart, growing it and putting it in a human body. Would it be artificial? No, it would be synthetic; hence the distinction.

It's both exciting and scary at the same time. :)
 
My initial thoughts: Why, oh why, of all the people/institutions to do this, why Craig Venter? It's like Monsanto making a plant that could feed the world... :rolleyes:

It is not all that surprising that JCVI was the group to do this, it is just about the top genetics institute out there and the man himself really is quite a sharp tack.


second, its not really *wholly* synthetic..only one small part of it..
it still needs 99.9% of a real bacteria to "live"..
its not really a "synthetic cell"..as they claim..

It is more synthetic than anything done to date. And "they" never claimed it was a "synthetic cell," that was the glorious media morons.

"They" called it exactly what it is: Synthetic biology.

sounds like only ONE chromosome was created in the computer..

Isnt it like putting an artificial heart in a human and saying "we have created a synthetic human"?
yeah, its cool and all, but its not really "a synthetic organism"

And when we consider that bacteria only have ONE chromosome your heart/body analogy goes out the window.

The more accurat analogy to what was done would be to say that the entire innards of a person were made artificial, placed inside a still living human and then their natural organs were used to jumpstart the artificial ones and then the natural ones were removed.
 
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