In my last speech, I talked about DNA and genes. DNA is a molecule that encodes genetic information in cells.
Genome is the entire DNA of an organism. This is to say that a genome contains all the genetic information needed to make the organism. Most of you may have heard of “Human Genome project”. Up to now, scientists have sequenced genomes of about a dozen of organisms. There are accumulated interests for scientist to understand the huge amount of genome sequencing data. Studying of genome data would help scientists better understand some basic questions about life, such as minimal genetic information needed to make or sustain a life. Such knowledge would makes it possible one day in the future that scientists can specifically design a genome, synthesize the genome and create an synthetic or artificial life.
Hers is an experiment conducted by scientists in Craig Venter Institute.
Left in the picture is a kind of bacteria. We called it A. A has its own genome X. Scientists designed a genome Y based on the blue script of another bacteria B.
Genome Y was introduced into Bacteria A and later Genome Y replaced genome X.
After the genome was replaced, all characteristics of bacteria A including its proteins, membrane and appearance changed, changed completely into bacteria B. This experiment illustrated that after transplantation of genome, a bacterial species changed into another.
This experiment itself didn’t create a new life. But it is a big step toward creating a synthetic or artificial life.
What could this technology – creating artificail life do? Unlimited! If synthetic life can be created in the future, this technology would be as revolutionary as nuclear energy and computers. One possible application of synthetic life is to create microorganism for bio-fuels production.
Some people may feel it is impossible or extremely dangerous for human being to create artificial life. Are we playing God here? As far as I am concerned, I think scientists will be able to create simple life like bacteria in 10 or 20 years, but it would be extremely difficulty or very unlikely to create complicated life like plants and animals in the near future.
Is the technology of creating artificial life horrible? No. I don’t think so. Technology itself cannot be labeled “good” or “evil”. It depends how it is used. Similar as nuclear energy, hazards the technology of creating artificial life could possibly bring about are environmental pollution because of accidental release of artificial life and production of bio-weapon by terrorists using this technology.
History has proven that the world, the society and people’s life have been getting better and better because of the development of science and technology. So it will be the case for the technology of creating artificial life as well.
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