Synthetic Genomics Announced its First Synthetic Life Form
Craig Venter, the US genomics pioneer, announced last night that scientists at his laboratories in Maryland and California had succeeded in their 15-year project to make the world’s first “synthetic cells” – bacteria called Mycoplasma mycoides .
“We have passed through a critical psychological barrier,” Dr Venter told the Financial Times. “It has changed my own thinking, both scientifically and philosophically, about life and how it works.”
The researchers built up the synthetic genome of M mycoides , with its million chemical letters, by stitching together shorter stretches of DNA, each about 1,000 letters long. They then transferred the completed genome into the shell of another bacterium M capricolum whose own DNA had been removed.
The transplanted genome “booted up” the host cell and took over its biological machinery. After 30 cell divisions, there were billions of synthetic bacteria in the lab dishes – all of them making exclusively the biological molecules associated with M mycoides.
