A research team led by Hamilton Smith at Craig Venter’s institute have artificially recreated an entire genome for the tiny, parasitic bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium. This is not new life — they have not created a new organism that can replicates itself — but it’s just about the next closest thing.
The paper appears in the journal Science today.
The study opens the door to the possiblity of creating much larger microorganisms, and Venter’s ultimate goal of creating new life that can efficiently produce biofuels (i.e. algae on steroids), clean up toxic waste and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The organism is 582,000 DNA bases (As, Ts, Cs and Gs) long, far shorter than the 3 billion bases in human DNA. Their next step is to strip out all of the genes in the bacterium’s DNA until only those that are essential to its function, perhaps 400, are left.
That, presumably, will ensure that if a gene mutates the organism cannot survive.
To provide a broader spectrum of opinion on this achievement I have asked a few local, distinguished geneticists and biologists to comment on its significance. Their comments appear separate blog entries, linked below: