In 2008, researchers built the first artificial genome, a wonder of synthetic biology in which scientists generated all 582,970 base pairs of the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium’s genome entirely from scratch. It was an unparalleled scientific achievement, requiring scientists to carefully design 101 unique DNA fragments so that their codes would overlap and stick together, then bind those fragments piece by piece. It was also small potatoes, one of many steps along the way to eventually creating a synthetic eukaryotic organism.
A new breakthrough now takes humankind closer than ever to developing the first complex artificial life.
In a suite of seven new studies published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers from the Synthetic Yeast Genome Project report that they have successfully synthesized six of the 16 chromosomes that comprise the entire genome of yeast. That puts them more than a third of the way to generating made-from-scratch designer yeast.
Biologists now regularly genetically engineer large swaths of DNA, achieving such triumphs as non-browning apples and correcting mutations that cause deadly disease. But synthesizing an organism’s entire genome could represent an unprecedented level of human control over nature.
Image: By NivinN – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45309825
Tags: artificial life, bioethics, generation, synthetic, yeast
