On 1/24/08, news of an important step to further the construction of synthetic organisms was reported by a team at the J. Craig Venter Institute. The team successfully engineered (“synthesized and assembled”) the genome of the mycoplasma genitalium bacteria using off-the-shelf genetic material (i.e. adenine, guanine, thymine, cytosine). According to the press release, the team used a process known as homologous recombination to build the genome from the aforementioned pool of genetic stuff.
The mycoplasma genitalium is the smallest free-living bacterium and supposedly has the smallest genome of any organism (viruses don’t count). So, you say, what this team did is really, really tiny, right? In fact, it’s so tiny it’s not really a big deal? Well, you may say that, but I would say you are wrong. This is a very big deal because up until this point the team had only been able to synthesize a 32,000 base pair genome. The genome of the little bacterium Venter’s synthesized is a whopping 582,970 base pairs (for this organism, that’s about 500 genes).
This effort was step two of a three step process which Craig Venter’s team hopes will result in the creation of novel organisms. I won’t bore (or fascinate) you with the details of the second step, which is actually composed of many complex substeps, but you can read about it in press releases or better yet, in the original Science article. Actually, one of these substeps had something to do with disrupting a gene to block “infectivity.” I’m not really sure what that means, but if it means not expressing a gene that will cause the bacterium to get infected by something (like a virus), that sounds great! Somehow, I don’t think I’m on the right track. Anyhow, back to the third big step in this overall process. According to Dan Gibson, the lead author of the paper, “the ultimate goal of inserting the synthetic chromosome into a cell and booting it up to create the first synthetic organism.” Like I said, this is a big, highly contentious deal.
Practitioners in the field of synthetic genomics / synthetic biology aim to create novel organisms. Synthetic biology essentially combines modern engineering and informatics with the biological sciences. Using phrases like “boot up,” they sometimes sound more like computer scientists than biologists. Some of them actually are computer scientists. This research may someday (perhaps sooner than most people imaging) lead to new organisms which could lead to high-yield, disease resistant crops (already being done with different methods) or particularly in a dystopian scenario, highly-infectious, super-deadly viruses that can’t be killed. In a similar vein, Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready® corn is critter and weed resistant and that germinates only when it’s sprayed. That stuff has apparently made it’s way into the fields of unwitting, farmers, according to the documentary, The Future of Food. Monsanto’s products are GMO (genetically modified organisms), which I suppose is a broad bucket in which synthetic biology could fall, but there are significant distinctions. Venter’s team is trying to create entirely new thinks rather than just tinkering with natures already-existing things.
Synthetic Genomics (from the namesake of the field), is Venter’s other company. SG is pioneering novel approaches to create synthetic biological systems intended to solve big problems (opportunities) like cleaning up environmental pollution, the sequestration of carbon, and the creation of clean and renewable energy sources etc. Of course, SG will patent these novel life forms, just as Monsanto does with it’s GMO crops and other products.
Later, I’ll write about the specific ethical controversies of this technology and how it broadly applies to nanotechnology, but for now, enjoy this talk Venter gave at the TED 2005 Conference.
