“Scientists could create the first new form of artificial life within months after a landmark breakthrough in which they turned one bacteria into another,” Roger Highfield reports for The Telegraph.
“In a development that has triggered unease and excitement in equal measure, scientists took the whole genetic makeup – or genome – of a bacterial cell and transplanted it into a closely related species,” Highfield reports.
“This then began to grow and multiply in the lab, turning into the first species in the process,” Highfield reports.
“The team that carried out the first ‘species transplant’ says it plans within months to do the same thing with a synthetic genome made from scratch in the laboratory,” Highfield reports. “If that experiment worked, it would mark the creation of a synthetic lifeform.”
“The breakthrough occurred at the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, the team reports today in the journal Science. One of its editors called it “a landmark in biological engineering,'” Highfield reports.
“The team wanted to develop a way to move a complete genome into a living cell, chosing the simplest and smallest kind, a bacterium. In all, of the millions of bacteria that they tried the transplant on, it only worked one time in every 150,000,” Highfield reports. “Dr Venter likened it to ‘changing a Macintosh computer into a PC by inserting a new piece of software’ and stressed it would be more difficult in other kinds of cells, which have enzymes to snip the DNA of invaders.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “jay” for the heads up.]
Holy Bacterium Boot Camp, Batman! That poor bacterium: got turned inside-out, went from transparent to opaque, inexplicably increased in complexity, became hideously misshapen, and now it swims backwards! Change it back from a PC into a Mac, Dr. Venkman, er… Venter, change the poor thing back!
Obviously, this news is not Apple-related beyond a passing quote mentioning Mac, but we would have posted this article regardless, as we sometimes do with articles we find extremely interesting. Plus, we got to make fun of PCs while referencing Batman and Ghostbusters, so there’s no way we could pass it up. 
You know where this is all going to end up, don’t you?
Don’t they mean “artificial iLife”?
So he’s created the biological equivalent of Boot Camp?
Sounds like something that happened in my fridge once.
This story is going to pass and be forgotten… and then 100 years from now people will realize that this may have been one of the most important stories in modern biology…
At least it’s a break from the incessant iPhone news.
That’s interesting and a modern marvel. This “new piece of software” is called Boot Camp by the way…
You can tell your grandchildren that you were there when something inside your refrigerator turned into a peecee.
I bet they think they’ve created “life”. It appears to me that all they’ve managed to do was move some machines from one box to another. In a few months they’ll have moved some more machines into more boxes.
“The team that carried out the first ‘species transplant’ says it plans within months to do the same thing with a synthetic genome made from scratch in the laboratory,” Highfield reports. “If that experiment worked, it would mark the creation of a synthetic lifeform.”
Synthetic genome? That sounds really, really creepy and yet exciting. They have no idea what they might be doing… genes are still not well understood. Think of what they might create?
“At least it’s a break from the incessant iPhone news.”
And we sure as hell wouldn’t want that. I mean after all this isn’t a Mac news.. wait, what?
A Mac is a PC now since the Intel switch
The only difference is a attention to hardware quality and a different operating system.
Linux PC, Windows PC, BSD PC, Unix PC, OS X PC.
PC = Personal Computer
Brought to you by ArtificialLifeDailyNews.com..
I agree about the relief from iPhone hype.
Perhaps all the over hype is responsible for the lack of post content seen here recently.
Apple, it seems doesn’t need it’s faithful fanatics like us anymore.
Apple is no longer the underdog it was.
..Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That…!
Well, Macs are very popular as clusters in biological sciences, so it’s not a total reach for this article.
saw that video clip coming from a mile away….. nice one.
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ya kno … all you who are complaining about the “over abundance” of iPhone news as of late ..
have you ever considered the reason for this might be due to the fact that Apple isnt focusing on anything else at the moment ?
I mean… really … are there any new Macs available ?? … New iPods ?? … TVs ??
No !!
This is a very historical week !!
This is ….”The week of the iPhone” !!
Quityerbitchin’ — and enjoy it !!
or …
go back and read Enderle !
Aye, the near future we always overestimate, the far future we always underestimate. It will be a world you’d hardly recognize.
Interesting.
Wow, scientists creating new life…..how Hitlerific
OK, I know you would have to be a biologist to know how the story was sensationalized by the Telegraph…
BUT IT WAS SENSATIONALIZED!!
This is major news, it is being published in Science, but it is not revolutionary. This is an evolution of work that has been going on since the 1970s. Stepping up from single genes all the way to full-genome transplants.
<u>It is not synthetic life.<u>
However, in the long journey towards synthetic life forms, this is an essential step. In fact, it is unlikely for us in the next 5-10 years to see a lab that is able to:
1- get an entire genome made synthetically;
2- get that synthetic genome into a bacterial shell; and
3- get the receiving bacterium to become biologically active
So, it is exciting news, but I will certainly not be remembering this as the turning point in biological sciences when I’m talking to my grandchildren.
This read is something to while away another moment while sitting outside the Apple Store…
I guess I need a life, artificial or otherwise!
Just let me know when Skynet becomes self-aware so I can go get a cabin in the backwoods.
you made me laugh MDN.
Thanks
They removed the genome of one bacteria and put it into another. In computer speak, they’ve done an operating system switch. Is it really shocking that you can replace a windows install with linux?
Its impressive, but not that spectacular. Don’t trust the media to accurately judge the impact of this research — remember they predicted the cures to all diseases when the human genome was sequenced? Here’s a coincidence for you — the same guy who sequenced the genome and hyped it up is the same guy who lead this new research. I’ve been to conferences and heard him speak and he’s a great speaker and an even better salesman. These claims he’s making about “synthetic life” are even less realistic than his previous claims about curing all diseases with the genome sequence.
Shit. Did they ask God or Father Christmas about whether they’re allowed to create life first?
They aren’t really making life if they are changing the DNA of something that is already alive. Right? We don’t even know how life is created in the first place, so how are we supposed to make it ourselves?
Too Hot! is essentially right.
The only quibbles I have with the analysis are semantic. The term “synthetic genome” can mean many different things. In some senses it is practical. In others, it is many, many years away.
To those that express shock, well, that is only because you are totally ignorant and taking this journalists wording at face value. This advance, while exciting for lab work, really is not currently consequential from a bioethics standpoint, nor a biosafety standpoint. Genes have from other species are being put into bacteria every single day in labs across the world already. Groups of genes, sometimes, too.
This technology is nothing to be afraid of nor are there any more serious risks than molecular biology that has been going on for 30ish years.
Excellent stuff. Make some heat and acid resistant bacteria that turns carbon dioxide into oxygen and set it loose in the atmosphere of Venus. A few thousand years later you have a nice habitable planet just next door
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“The team that carried out the first ‘species transplant’ says it plans within months to do the same thing with a synthetic genome made from scratch in the laboratory,”
That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. I guess their lab must have one of those new DNA typewriters that came out this week (lost in the iPhone hype). It only has four keys: CGTA!
I would have been more impressed if they had done the equivalent of turning a PC into a bona fide Macintosh running OS X Leopard… and if the resulting offspring reproduced into Macs WITH iPhones.
Is it true they tried to create an artificial brain cell inside Steve Ballmer’s head because they felt sorry for the first one being so lonely?
What, no picture of Ballmer?!?!?!
He’s living proof that Microsoft invented artificial life first!
So they take two life forms and reduce that number to one. That is not creating life, but destroying it.
Well this is a nice breakthrough. Of course other living creatures have been doing this for a while, viruses being a good example. You might argue that viruses are not quite alive but hey, it’s close.
There are a few other species that do something similar to this. Some fungi, like Rhizoctonia sp. perform “anastomosis”, where they physcially merge and exchange nuclei, which contain the nuclear material.
Nothing new here, save that the humans are taking another step to what is already out there.
Let the imping continue.
@ Road Warrior “A Mac is a PC now since the Intel switch”
from that logic one would have to make the assumption that a Mac is purely what the processor inside the machine is.
Its a part of it, sure, but not everything. Its like saying every person with a healthy heart is the same thing. Well they are not the same thing, they all have something in common, but the brain (OS) is very different.
Youre saying that a linux machine, a Mac and a PC are all the same because they have the same family of processors?
Obviously this isn’t the case, Apple are the only ones that actually have control over the hardware and the software, and can tailor everything to work together. But even thats not the most important thing, The most important thing is the OS. I thought we’d covered this along time ago.
Once GWB hears about it, it’s a goner.
What does this have to do with the iPhone?!?!?!?
Once GWB hears about it, it’s a goner.
Not once the new life form is considered an ILLEGHAL life form, then he works for amnesty for it
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illegal – H is too close to G this morning
ET says ‘iPhone Hoooome’
Jurassic Park anyone?
This is exactly why we need a Death Ray on the iPhone! E-mail, Calls, Music, eliminating rampant biological threats – it all fits.
Talk about playing God….
Too bad this didn’t come out a few weeks ago. We could have created “homo-line-standus” to wait for our iPhones for us.
Weird. All I can say is
Why?