synthetic life

[dstebbins]

I was reading a book about the history of Genetics. It's called "Genetics: Unlocking the Secrets of Life" if anyone is interesting in renting it from their library.

 

Anyway, I read about a scientist whose name I can't spell who won a Nobel Prize for cracking the DNA code and a second Nobel Prize for creating a synthetic gene. It wasn't an easy process. He had to painstakingly clense the reactants of any waste products after every step, but after months of hard work, when he inserted the gene into an e coli cell, the cell produced the exact protein that he hypothesised.

 

This made me ponder: Could we take this one step further and create a synthetic life? We could build an entirely new human from scratch, every membrane, every mitochondria, every gene of every cell of every organ.

 

Now, your first argument would be that this would be pointless. That is not necessarily the case. Imagine creating a perfect human, with no medical problems whatsoever and the mind of a Vulcan from Star Trek, capable of doing long, complicated Calculus problems in his head faster than even a computer can. A person like that would be of great strategic interest to a country, say, militarily. I say country because it seems as if only the richest countries like the United States or China can afford to hire a human computer, assuming that their salaries are proportional to what they're worth.

 

So, now that I've explained the possible benifits, what do you think?

[Forensicmad]

I think it would be extremely difficult, not to mention time consuming. If it took him that long to make one cell, imagine how long it would take to build up the billions of cells in the human body and THEN, put them all in an exact configuration so they could all function together. Building thousands of miles of blood vessels, miles of nervous cords all, both all attached to nearly each and every cell. And then comes the brain, possibly the most complex thing in the universe - most of it we do not even know how it works. So even if we had the time and intelligence to build the body and internal organs, the brain would probably hold us back.

Whats the point of a body with no brain? Whats the point of a computer with no CPU? It would be interesting, yes, but possible(?)... probably not.

[Yggdrasil]

Since biochemists seek to replicate biological phenomena in vitro, creating an artificial organism is an ultimate goal of biochemistry. In addition to being a intellectually interesting, synthetic biology also has many practical applications. For example, biotech firms could engineer novel organisms to carry out various chemical reactions or to act a biosensors for different compounds. While the technology may seem far away, a few synthetic biology projects have emerged and are beginning to open up this new field.

 

J Craig Venter, one of the two scientists credited with completing the human genome project, is taking a first step toward creating synthetic lifeforms. He has founded a company, Synthetic Genomics, which seeks to construct a minimal genome for a microorganims, a first step in creating an artificial organism. There are other ongoing synthetic biology programs in many universities as well. For example, MIT and Harvard have begun various projects which aim to create artificial biological feedback circuits and switches to be able to engineer novel pathways. Related is the field of protein engineering which seeks to create proteins with functions on found in nature. Homme Helligna's laboratory at Duke has made some pretty interesting advances in this area.

[dstebbins]

I think it would be extremely difficult, not to mention time consuming. If it took him that long to make one cell, imagine how long it would take to build up the billions of cells in the human body

Keep in mind that this scientist was working by himself. If we could get all the biologists of the world together, agree on a language to speak, and they worked together like a well-regulated military, we might be able to do it in a decade or so.

 

and THEN, put them all in an exact configuration so they could all function together. Building thousands of miles of blood vessels, miles of nervous cords all, both all attached to nearly each and every cell.

That's not exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking more along the lines of making a sperm and an egg with perfect genes and fusing them together via artificial insemenation. We'd then put them in a test tube and allow it to grow over a nine month period, feeding it to keep it alive, and allow it to grow up like a normal human, just with a perfect body.

 

And then comes the brain, possibly the most complex thing in the universe - most of it we do not even know how it works. So even if we had the time and intelligence to build the body and internal organs, the brain would probably hold us back.

Whats the point of a body with no brain? Whats the point of a computer with no CPU? It would be interesting, yes, but possible(?)... probably not.

With that, however, you may have a point. I forgot about how complicated the brain is. Maybe, in a century or so, when we fully understand the brain, we can begin work on this synthetic human.

[bascule]

This sort of thing is where a-life would be extremely beneficial. You could create a human from scratch by modelling human development inside a computer.

[dstebbins]

With that, however, you may have a point. I forgot about how complicated the brain is. Maybe, in a century or so, when we fully understand the brain, we can begin work on this synthetic human.

About this. We may not need to fully understand the brain if we went the artificial sperm & egg route. All we would have to know is the genes that make a person smart and use them.