Seeking and Finding Wholeness

I always wondered if within my life time we, humans, would be able to make ‘living’ things. By living I mean ‘life’ in the traditional sense. I am not referring to artificial intelligence (AI), robots, learning computers, virtual living beings, viruses, etc. Interestingly, based on a news article titled ‘Artificial life is only months away‘ it seems we are getting closer.

Is this scary or exciting? Maybe it’s both, it is certainly sci-fi material. We may use this technology to benefit the medical field, or we could create, or engineer, bacteria that is efficient at producing natural gas or other usable fuels. We also, better be careful not to create super killer, out of control, multiplying, toxic-creating species.

This ‘man-made’ life is not entirely made out of scratch. The method being used works by transplanting DNA into bacteria cells, thus rebooting the bacteria cells with this new DNA and transforming the bacteria into a totally new species.

The DNA, or synthetic genome, hold the entire genetic code for the new species, and this synthetic genome is made entirely from scratch by scientists.

Real Life-Creation?

I can’t help but wonder, should we manage to transform bacteria into a different ‘new’ bacteria, even into an entirely new species of bacteria, are we really creating life or merely genetically reprogramming existing life. Does a living organism live by its DNA code alone, or are there other aspects at play?

While we can engineer the DNA out of scratch, it’s pretty much useless until we successfully place it into an already-living bacteria. We are actually reprogramming or rebooting the bacteria cell, that is already alive.

The question left unanswered is, are we able to make the bacteria cell itself out of scratch?  So far the answer is no.

I can’t help but wonder, what makes a bacteria cell alive?

Dr Venter, who has been chasing his goal for a decade, is already working on projects to use synthetic biology to create bacteria that transform coal into cleaner natural gas, and algae that soak up carbon dioxide and turn it into hydrocarbon fuels. Other potential applications include new ways of manufacturing medicines and vaccines.

Artificial life will be created within four months, a controversial scientist has predicted. Craig Venter, who led a private project to sequence the human genome, told The Times that his team had cleared a critical hurdle to creating man-made organisms in a laboratory.

“Assuming we don’t make any errors, I think it should work and we should have the first synthetic species by the end of the year,” he said.

Source: London Times Online