#42

[Guest atom]

Hypothesis #42

 

This hypothesis is designed to suggest how scanning tunneling microscope technology combined with the knowledge of the atomic structure of DNA could be used to create life from atoms in there free form. Note that this hypothesis is designed to suggest the possibility of such an experiment, not to explain the detailed procedures that would be involved. There are also many assumptions being made about the current limits and abilities of the technologies available to today’s scientists.

In recent years the technology of scanning tunneling microscopes has been used to arrange various atoms into rings, characters, and even three dimensional structures. This ability to arrange individual atoms into man made structures grants unlimited possibilities to scientists with access to this technology.

If this technology can be used for the purpose of arranging simple atoms such as hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, then it seems feasible that these atoms could be arranged into structures identical to the base structures of nucleic acid. These structures are phosphate groups, carbon sugars, and the nitrogen containing bases adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine. If these atomic arrangements can be effectively synthesized, using existing atomic models, then they could be arranged into the repeating structure of the DNA double helix. A perfectly synthesized DNA molecule could then be inserted into a donor sperm cell and the sperm could be used to fertilize a donor egg cell. If fertilization has occurred and the egg grows into a living organism the experiment will have been proved successful.

Because this procedure would require the manipulation of millions or billions of individual atoms it would be very time and resource consuming. Therefore the manipulation of pre-existing DNA should be an acceptable alternative to proving the procedure will work (see revision). An experiment such as rearranging the individual genes for a trait with variable expressions crossed with a true breeding line to produce a desired result would be an effective proof.

This experiment would have some basic guidelines such as being done in a vacuum, on a completely non-reactive medium, low temperature to avoid decomposition of the molecules, an possible energy source for creating desired atomic bonding, and careful manipulation of the atoms and molecules involved. The correct orientation of the atoms would also be important.

 

Revision

Due to the complications involved with trying to manage the billions of individual atoms present in a single strand of DNA, a simpler experiment could be performed to test the basic concept of the original hypothesis.

This experiment would consist of being able to replicate each of the four bases in DNA as well as the phosphate group backbone. Each of these individually do not consist of very many atoms, and may be relatively easy to create. If this were possible then it might be feasible to construct a replica of a single bacterium gene. Streptomycin or some other antibiotic resistance would be a simple target for an expressible trait. After enough copies of the gene were constructed it could then be introduced into an E.coli (or other bacterium) culture and allowed to be absorbed by the bacterium. If the next generation of bacteria showed resistance to the antibiotic it will have been proven that expressible genes/DNA can be created from atoms in there free form.

This experiment would not be able to prove that life can be created without preexisting life but would prove the feasibility that life could be created synthetically.

 

 

Any thoughts on this anybody? Useful contributions perhaps. Or just opinions.

 

I sent this to the IBM Aldeman reasearch institute and actually got a response which means it must make sense to some people.

[Xavier]

The technical ability to shift atoms around has gone from awe-inspiring to trivial in record time - though whether you can get them to react together in just the right places is arguable, and argued vociferously by the biggest names in nanotechnology (or molecular manufacture as Eric Drexler terms it) Read all about it at The Foresight Institute website.

The problem is not the ability to manipulate atoms but with where to put them. DNA strands can be built up from industrially synthesised nucleotides with ease - if you know what sequence to use and how to 'bootstrap' it into 'life'.

 

In fact, this has been done. A polio virus (one of the smallest and simplest) has been created from scratch from its known RNA sequence. Injected into mice, it gave them polio!! See this report in the BMJ.

 

And amazing as that sounds I think the most shocking of all is that instead of splashing 'LIFE CREATED' or 'MAN BECOMES GOD' across the world media, all we got was 'Loony scientists could make new bioterror weapons'