ROCKVILLE, Md. Biologist J. Craig Venter once raced the United States government to complete the decoding of the human genome. Now career studying the code of life, Dr. Venter has a new goal which is.. life itself.
Along with two other veterans, Dr. Venter hopes to become the first to construct a made to order bacterium. Normally new life is created by reproduction, with each generation passing it's genes on to the next. But Dr. Venter aims to bypass that process by creating a complete set of genes, or genome of a single-cell bacterium in his laboratory. This man made genome would be installed inside a bacterium whose own genes have been carefully removed.
Antonio's article goes on to say, by artificially creating such a life form Dr. Venter's researchers hope they may come closer to understanding what life is and how scientists can manipulate it for the benefit of mankind. New artificial species could possibly open avenues for the industrial production of drugs, chemicals or even clean energy.
"This is the next big step we have all been talking about. We're moving from being able to read the genetic code to actually writing it," Dr. Venter says, with a huge smile.
Spurring on Dr. Venter's latest ambition is a $12 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. Also an additional $30 million being raised by Dr. Venter and his business partners from various sources such as several wealthy private investors will bankroll a new company, Synthetic Genomics Inc. The company will assist funding the research program at Dr. Venter's non-profit research institute and own the rights to any intellectual property the program creates.
A number of researchers are speeding toward similar goals. Teams at Harvard University and teams in Japan are attempting to make new versions of common E. coli bacteria with totally synthetic genes. On many campuses "synthetic biology" is the latest buzzword. Students are now being taught to program the DNA of bacteria as if it were a piece of software running a computer.
Scientists have known for approximately 30 years how to add genes to a bacterium. That is the basic discovery behind the biotechnology industry. For example, insulin for diabetics is being manufactured by splicing an insulin making gene into a microbe. Dr Venter's plan is to take this technology to the next level - to manufacture and combign all the genes necessary for a bacterium to survive. For now, he will still need to utilize the shell of a living microbe, with its genome removed to complete the creation of what he calls the first "human-made species."
The most fundamental hurdle Dr. Venter faces is getting his concoction to work. It's possible that his team could create the genome, place it inside the bacterial cell, and find that nothing happens - analogous to installing a new operating system in a computer and having it crash.
If the cell does "boot up," Dr. Venter believes the creation will have "10,000 applications," providing a template onto which scientists could add and test new functions. He imagines an organism perfected to make clean hydrogen energy from sunlight. Another would chew up cellulose, the raw material of plants, and spit out ethanol that could be used as car fuel which will have massive beneficial effects on the environment and as well as to people.
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