[Maviarab]

Artificial life 'a step closer'

Scientists are a step closer to creating artificial life after transforming one type of bacteria into another.

Researchers in the US managed to swap the entire genome of a bacterial cell with one from a different related bug. Given a completely new set of genes, the bacterium was effectively changed into a new species.

The achievement is an important milestone towards the goal of creating designer microbes in the laboratory with useful functions such as providing biofuel, cleaning up pollution, or removing carbon.

It may also increase concerns about where synthetic biology is going. Artificial life could be created for evil purposes as well as good, for instance to produce biological weapons. The possibility of a laboratory accident unleashing dangerous bugs onto the human population must also be taken seriously.

Manufacturing living cells from scratch requires the ability to move and manipulate whole genomes, the genetic software containing all the instructions for life.

Dr Carole Lartigue and colleagues at the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, experimented with two kinds of Mycoplasma, bugs that infect goats.

Full story here http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=5377161