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back to article US boffins synthesize self-replicating bacteria

US researchers have fashioned the first self-replicating bacterial cell, "creating new life out of already existing life." This momentous milestone — rife with both ethical quandries and immense potential — was reached by a team of two dozen researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JVCI) of Rockville, Maryland, and San …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    super beer? or the next paradigm shift? Eliminate the middle man!

    instead of a super yeast, how about a life form that creates the beer from whatever you've already eaten. If it can exist symbiotically in the human body, then one can avoid the brewing process altogether. Would save a fortune in government subsidies on alcoholic deadbeats. Panhandlers and illegal aliens both could spend their money on food instead of booze.

    next up, the artificial THC and nicotine photosynthetic organisms in a skin tattoo. More brain opiates for more easily duped voters.

    seriously, though. wow. This is very close to the same level of importance as fire, and splitting the atom. Technologies of epic destruction if misused and monumental benefit when applied for humanity's benefit.

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  2. wawadave

    DNA wet hacking

    ""And should the meddling go wrong, why, we could wipe our world of intelligent life""

    No more dogs and cat OMG!!!

    As far as wet hacking goes we are not even at script kiddie level of wet hacking yet.

    What they have done is just simple cut paste.

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  3. Joe User
    Alert

    And shortly after the announcement...

    A nondescript gray goo was seen slowly enveloping the JVCI buildings in Maryland and California....

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  4. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    WTF?

    Suicide genes?

    Perhaps they should talk to Monsanto (or whatever they are calling themselves these days) about how well that worked on keeping their herbicide resistance genes locked into their (proprietary) corn strains.

    Just a thought.

    BTW re-writing the human genome. A substantial part of the human genome matches matches that from various viruses and bacteria. In one case the genes for coding part of the human placenta matches those used to construct the cell wall of a bacteria, presumably humans acquiring and passing this gene on produced healthier babies than those that did not. it would seem reasonable that we acquired incorporated these genes from them and *not* vice versa.

    Humans are *already* chimeric.

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  5. Stuart Morrison
    Thumb Up

    Well..

    "Throughout the course of this work, the team contemplated, discussed, and engaged in outside review of the ethical and societal implications of their work,"...

    .. and though "fuck it".

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  6. Mussie (Ed)

    Hands Up

    Anyone else who read this and thought "were fucked now ?"

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  7. John H Woods Silver badge
    Happy

    Don't worrry

    A decade or so ago Ventner said he wouldn't do this because it would be unethical - it would enable the creation of super-pathogens. Then and now this was sheer hyperbole.

    Super pathogens are super because of highly evolved abilities to evade or combat host immune systems. Take a basic 'synthetic cell' and turn it into a pathogen and the immune system of any non-compromised host would rip it to shreds in seconds.

    So the danger from super-pathogens STILL comes from finding, selecting and dispersing existing evolved pathogens, rather than assembling them from scratch.

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  8. Yesnomaybe
    Pint

    Same old argument again

    I think this sounds a bit like the arguments around the possibilities of creating an Earth-destroying event by smashing particles in the Big Underground Contra Rotating Particle Smasher Thingy .

    In the end, the consensus was something like this: "If it is possible, then nature has tried it already, and we are still here." A cell with a DNA sequence so simple as the one we are talking about here, will have a snowballs chance in hell in a natural environment. Nothing to worry about yet. And yes, I'll be properly excited when they make the rest of the cell from nothing but raw materials.

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    1. cs94njw
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      Thumb Up

      The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

      I guess this is the true issue with making life - what is the difference between the raw materials and that shell of the yeast bacteria? Is it scarily - not much?

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      1. Chemist
        Reply Icon

        @cs94njw

        The difference between a synthesised stretch of DNA and somehow managing to make a viable, simple bacteria is absolutely GIGANTIC.

        A moderately good analogy is that of having a program code that describes in detail how to build an entire computer (from atoms and molecules) but not yet having the computer to run it on.

        The major step forward with is the is the knowledge that the new DNA is the only DNA in the cell and that all functions are being managed by it after the cells have been cycled a number of times

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  9. cs94njw
    Thumb Up

    Basically, this is the first debugger

    They've written the code, and syntacticly it's valid, but we've never had the means to run that code and see where it falls over.

    Now we do!

    Question is - how do we step through the code, or attach to an existing process? And what form does a core dump take?

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