The Quantum Tunnel
Science and the World around Us
Synthetic Life
This article first appeared in the September 2010 is-
sue of The Next Door Magazine
David S. Latchman
The recent announcement of the creation of a syn-
thetic life-form by scientists at the J. Craig Venter
Institute is likely to conjure images straight out of
a Hollywood B-movie. A few chemicals are mixed
into a beaker, the concoction is zapped with elec-
tricity and a few hours later, a cascade of reactions
take place and a new life-form crawls out of solution
to wreck havoc on an unsuspecting world. (Throw
in mad-scientist laughing manically while shouting,
“It’s alive!”)
As exciting (or horrifying) as this sounds, this sce-
nario is far removed from what the field of synthetic
biology represents. Scientists are not attempting to
create life out of inanimate matter (at least, not yet)
but rather modify existing organisms, like genetic
engineers already do today. But instead of target-
ing and replacing one gene, large chunks of genes
or entire genomes are changed. The difference be-
tween this and genetic engineering is that synthetic
biologists are constructing the instruction sets for life
from scratch and adding it to something that is al-
ready alive. The possibilities of this are endless as
the changes in an organism’s DNA can force them
to do things typically not found in nature, such as,
the production of fuels and chemicals from carbon
dioxide in the air to the manufacture of medicines.
Organisms can even be designed to seek and destroy
malignant cells and hopefully cure diseases.
Newsletter Contents:
Synthetic Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Volume 1, Number 2, May, 8 2011
The Minimal Genome Project and
Creating Synthetic Organisms
But what is remarkable about this recent achieve-
ment isn’t the genetic sequencing or the chemical
synthesis of a bacterial cell that took place but how
far the field has come in a relatively short space of
time. The techniques to sequence DNA was first
developed in the late 1970’s by Frederick Sanger to
map the genome of a bacterium phi-X174, the first
organism to be sequenced. This technique that was
painstakingly done entirely by hand and played an
important part in the Human Genome Project. To-
day, computers are used to sequence data and the
ability to digitize genomic information has increased
by more than eight orders of magnitude in the past
25 years; a feat only surpassed by the semiconductor
industry.
The Venter Lab’s interest in synthesizing large
DNA molecules and chromosomes grew out of their
efforts over the past 15 years from the the Minimal
Genome Project. This project sought to discover and
define the minimal set of instructions or genes that is
needed for an organism to survive. In any organism
there are large sets of genes that are non-coding; they
do not encode proteins needed for life. Theoretically,
these can be eliminated from an organism with no
detrimental effect. This work was started with the se-
quencing of the Mycoplasma genitalium bacterium,
an organism with the smallest complement of genes
and the organism the group chose to synthesize.
The group then developed strategies to not only
produce large DNA sequences from yeast cells but
to also assemble them in the correct order. Once
fully assembled, the genome can be inserted into an
already existing cell that has had its genetic mate-
The Quantum Tunnel Newsletter
rial removed. Certain genetic markers were added
to distinguish the laboratory created specimens from
their “wild” cousins, genes that would be transferred
to daughter cells and can be identified in any test.
This process is nothing like the creation of a life-
form but rather the modification of. It is akin to wip-
ing the hard-drive of your computer to install your
own operating system. The cell is the computer sys-
tem that runs the instruction set that is encoded in
the synthesized genome.
The Promise, Threats and Implica-
tions of Synthetic Biology
Today, very few of us can imagine a life without
semi-conductors. But the manner in which semicon-
ductors has transformed our lives and society will
probably pale in comparison to what synthetic biol-
ogy offers. Craig Venter imagines the engineering of
certain types of algae to use the carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere to create fuels. The idea is so intriguing
that ExxonMobil has invested over $600 million into
this venture and if this succeeds, not only will we be
able to solve the problem of fossil fuel dependence
but we may also have a means to combat global cli-
mate change.
There is the natural fear that new, never before
see life-forms may attack all life on earth, whether
by accident or intentional means. Whether this fear
is misplaced or not, the scenario is most probably un-
likely as any designed organism is likely to have a
very narrow purpose and thereby unlikely to pose
a threat to a large set of organisms and, hence, life in
general. Life is robust and has survived on the planet
for over three billion years and has done so by meet-
ing the challenges and threats that other pathogens
pose.
But to handle such a possibility, Venter has intro-
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Vol. 1, May, 8 2011
duced the idea of “suicide” genes built into his or-
ganisms; if an organism does manage to run amok,
it can be they can be triggered to kill themselves. In
the book, “Jurassic Park”, Crichton’s dinosaurs were
altered to not produce the amino-acid lysine which
had to be fed to them by their owners to ensure sur-
vival. If any dinosaur escaped from captivity, death
would have followed in a week.
Besides the ability to engineer organisms de-
signed to suit a particular purpose, the promise of
synthetic biology may be able to answer some of the
more profound questions. The answers to the ques-
tions of how life came to be may come from our un-
derstanding of how to create a living organism our-
selves. The Miller-Urey experiment was supposed
to create the amino-acids needed to create life from
the theorized primordial goo but this experiment re-
mains inconclusive and is difficult to replicate.
We have not reached the stage where we can mix
inert chemicals to build a living organism. Even the
simplest cell is an extremely complex structure and
the ability to build one of our own from scratch may
be a long way off; we still have a lot to learn. But
that does not mean it can’t or won’t happen. Such
an achievement, when it does happen, may have the
humbling effect as we discover our relationship to
other life-forms. But it may also provoke the fear that
we have, once again, over stepped our bounds and
tampered with the powers that should belong only
to deities.
To date, there has been little attention paid by the
general public to synthetic biology, its potential or
implications. The expected debate over this issue did
not happen as it did when Dolly was introduced to
the world. The creation of bacteria is too far removed
from the general public’s mind; the organisms are
too small, too insignificant and too invisible. What
is more likely to stir people’s emotions and fears is
when they are able to stare a synthetic life-form in
the face and watch as it stares right back at them.
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