Synthetic Biology: Venter and the Synthetic Genome 2007 – 2010

For 15 years Craig Venter has dreamed of building a genome from nothing, from scratch and using it to create life, creating life like Frankenstein is an old dream

For 15 years Craig Venter has dreamed of building a genome from nothing, from scratch and using it to create life, creating life like Frankenstein is an old dream. At the beginning of 2008, Venter and his group announced that they had created a bacterial genome from scratch, thus moving one step forward to creating synthetic life forms - living cells that are designed and built by humans to perform extensive tasks ranging from producing biofuels to sequestering carbon dioxide.

Buying DNA supplies is like ordering a pizza from a pizzeria

Scientific American reported in early 2008 that a group from Venter's Institute reported in the online version of Science that they were able to assemble the genes of the bacterium with the smallest number of genes, Mycoplasma genitalium. It is the smallest free-living bacteria that can be grown in the laboratory and is a common urinary tract infection. The 582,970 base pairs of the bacterial genome is the largest chemical structure then synthesized and defined in the laboratory. This was the first time that a genome the size of a bacterium had been chemically synthesized, so that it was 20 times longer than any previously synthesized DNA molecule.

How was the genome synthesized at that time? In the summer of 2007, the group ordered short strands of genetic code from American and German commercial companies that are experts in DNA synthesis. Even then, ordering DNA from commercial suppliers became as easy as ordering a pizza from the neighborhood pizzeria. It was said in the science papers that in the future it will even be possible to order larger pieces of DNA, for yeasts, animals and perhaps those of humans...

Then the researchers spliced ​​them together into longer and longer strands using techniques borrowed from standard molecular biology. To assemble the largest pieces of DNA, Venter's group inserted them into yeast cells and used a process called "homologous recombination," which yeast uses to repair DNA damage.

First, in the summer of 2007, Venter and his group converted one type of bacteria into another through DNA transplantation. They thereby changed the identity of the bacterium by impregnating it with the genetic code of another bacterium. Then, the final product of the experiment was equivalent to the natural genetic code that appears in the bacterium genitalium.M. However, with two slight changes: the scientists silenced the gene that allowed the bacteria to infect human cells and they added some identifying marks so that they could distinguish between the synthetic and the natural genome: short lines of a genetic code signature that identifies the product as "man-made" and not Made by God... that's it Construction of the bacterial synthetic genome.

After this step, Venter and his group converted one type of bacteria to another in the summer of 2007 through DNA transplantation. They thereby changed the identity of the bacterium by impregnating it with the genetic code of another bacterium. This completes the construction of the bacterial synthetic genome.

The final step Schonter aimed for is to introduce this synthetic genome into a cell and thereby revive it. Venter began working on this in experiments since 2008. Last year, the breakthrough occurred when Venter's team switched the bacteria to the fast-growing M. mycoides. This week he finally published an article in the online version of Science in which he writes that he and his group managed to transfer the synthetic bacterial genome into a bacterium and while reviving it there. There in the bacteria Venter's synthetic masterpiece replaced the natural DNA. The microbial cell that was powered by Venter's synthetic genome began to replicate and produce a new set of proteins.

Synthetic biology: pros and cons

Venter belongs to a small group of scientists who work in the field of synthetic biology. A field whose entire purpose is planning and building living things from raw materials of life, organic chemicals and genetic codes. Synthetic biologists design genetic sequences, which God, or if you will, nature, never dreamed of. The idea of ​​creating and creating new functions for new creatures, microbes, the fruit of human creation holds a pink and black future in the style of Parkenstein's laboratory. These creatures produce cheap biofuels, remove pollutants and spilled fuel for days. Including perhaps bacteria that can produce drugs or those that invade and destroy cancer cells - can really help humanity. Think about the fact that there might be libraries of bacteria - a kind of garage of DNA replacements. They could be transplanted into bacteria to create living programmed machines. There are things that even billions of years of evolution and even Darwin himself could not plan and think about. Whereas a few years of laboratory research can jump-start and save many people on Earth. There is always room for improvement and renovation. Taking a bacterium and it will digest whatever we want, produce a drug against debilitating dark diseases in the desired quantities and the possibilities are endless and so are the developments which are probably an age or two further away from Venter's synthetic development.

Synthetic biology technology also has destructive potential. It could fall into the hands of terrorists: in the future it will be possible to engineer bacteria so that they release a deadly poison or a flu virus, which is resistant to vaccines and antiviral drugs. Therefore, already in October 2008, the Venter Institute and MIT wrote a special report and researchers in the field of synthetic biology published articles in scientific journals on the issue of the negative uses of the discoveries and findings of synthetic biology.

Companies that produce bacteria that are genetically modified can create a certain type of imprinting a DNA mark on the bacteria "All rights reserved here to Dr. Gali Weinstein" and then there will be no copyright theft or even theft of the products infected with the aforementioned bacteria...

See: SCIENCE VOL 328 21 MAY 2010