Craig Venter Creates Synthetic Life

Craig Venter, the man who was the driving force behind the complete sequencing of the human genome, along with Synthetic Genomics - a company he founded, is pioneering reasearch with the aim of synthesising organisms completely designed by humans. This reasearch will have massive implications for the future of life on this planet, and for the understanding of life itself.

The first task the team faced in synthesising life was assembling a complete chromosome from scratch. While there are many machines today which can synthesise small pieces of DNA with great accuracy, the larger the DNA molecule gets, more errors can creep in. The team designed a process similar to that of the mechanism for chromosome rebuilding in D. Radiodurans. D. Radiodurans is an organism which can be blasted with an immensley large amount of
radiation, and survive. While the chromosome does get completely blown apart, only hours later the chromosome is fully reconstructed to its former self.

Using this technique, the team built a chromosome from scratch - modeled off of the chromosome of a small virus. They inserted the synthesised chromosome into an E. Coli cell and nervously waited to see if the chromosome was properly read. It was. The E. coli produced copies of the virus witch left the cell, and then promptly came back and killed the E. Coli. The team was successful in synthesising life.

The next challenge was to synthesise a much bigger chromosome - that of a bacteria. Using the newly developed technique of building chromosomes, they constructed a complete bacterial chromosome, with some minor changes. For instance, they added genes to colour the cell blue, and also to create restriction enzymes. The role of a restriction enzyme is to seek out and destroy any DNA which is not a part of its own chromosome. All that was left was to test the newly created chromosome in an E. Coli cell. If the test was successful, the restriction enzymes in the new chromosome would destroy the E. Coli chromosome, and take over control of the entire functioning of the cell. This would effectively be like software building its own hardware. Would it be possible to boot-up this new chromosome in a fully formed cell of another species? It was. The experiment was successful. The restriction enzymes destroyed the E. Coli chromosome and the synthetic DNA took control of the cell, which promptly turned blue.

With this incredible new scientific tool, anyone will be able to design there own organism by synthesising a chromosome, and booting it up in a living cell. This has vast and amazing applications. Just one of the applications discussed by Craig Venter is the synthesis of bacterial colonies which take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as a feed stock, and produce Octane as a byproduct of metabolism. Just this one design of bacteria would have the potential to both avert global warming and provide all the fuel we will ever need in the form of Octane. "We have truly modest goals of replacing the entire peteroleum industry", he says, seemingly just a joke, but a serious outcome of this research. He signs off by saying "We are a ways away from improving people, our goal is to make sure that we have a chance to survive long
enough to maybe do that."

By Sam Peet (41183894)

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