Should Scientists Create Artificial Life Forms?

February 15, 2008

Mycoplasma genitalium is a bacterium that resides on epithelial cells inside the genital tracts of humans suffering from non-gonococcal urethritis. Up to this point, M. genitalium’s main claim to fame was that it is one of the least complex organisms known to man. But now, the humble microbe is the subject of worldwide headlines; researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute have just accomplished a scientific first by assembling a near-perfect replica of the bacterium’s 582,970 base-pair genome from its chemical components.  If Venter’s team is able to insert the synthetic genome into a living bacterium, which they hope to do sometime in 2008, in theory, at least, it should take over control of the organism’s functions, in the same way that installing and booting up a copy of a new operating system would run a computer.

The Venter Institute’s feat moves us one step closer to the day when scientists can create totally synthetic life forms that don’t exist in nature. As the New York Times explains:

"Synthetic biologists envision being able to design an organism on a computer, press the 'print' button to have the necessary DNA made and then put that DNA into a cell to produce a custom-made creature.

'What we are doing with the synthetic chromosome is going to be the design process of the future,' said J. Craig Venter, the boundary-pushing gene scientist."

The ability to create synthetic organisms could be tremendously useful, and profitable too. Scientists might be able to design a fuel-producing microbe that efficiently converts biomass into ethanol, or create custom-made cellular factories to produce ingredients for medicines. (Already, University of California scientist Jay Keasling has used synthetic biology techniques to program yeast cells to produce artemisinin, a substance used in treating malaria, more cheaply than it can be extracted from tree bark.) They even might devise tiny biological robots that could adapt to their environments with greater agility than any machine, or manmade bacteria programmed to attack and kill cancers. It’s not too hard to imagine the creation of synthetic life forms eventually turning into a trillion-dollar global industry.

On the other hand, it might be just as easy to cause incredible harm with such technology. An organism custom designed for a benign purpose might escape into the environment and mutate into a crop-ravaging pest. Worse yet, malevolent governments or terrorist organizations might eventually be able to create new types of lethal pathogens for biological warfare. Here’s an article from The New Atlantis that lays out some of the potential perils.

So what do you think? Should scientists be allowed to create synthetic life forms, or are the potential risks too scary? Express your opinion below.

Comments

[Caffeine Driven Stress Magnet]

If the creation of artificial life forms is allowed, it's almost inevitable that we're going to have a global-scale biological catastrophe at some point. The only question is whether it will be accidental or intentional.

[Goddess in Training]

This is a moot argument because we already manipulate life forms and have been doing so for thousands of years! Look at all the dog breeds that humans have created by manipulating traits and genes through selective breeding. Doing it in a laboratory only speeds up the process.

[Sonja Barak]

What if scientists develop a new microbe that could help scrub the atmosphere of greenhouse gases? I don't think we can afford to close the door on any scientific discovery, because we never know what is going to turn out to be beneficial!

[Astroboy]

How long will it take them to progress from creating synthetic microbes to creating more complex life forms (i.e., animals or humans?) I think we're going to get into the same ethical, moral and legal issues that human cloning would create.

[I Love Huckabee]

God is the only one who can create life! This idea of scientists pretending to be the Almighty is nothing but blasphemy. But in a twisted way, they actually are acknowledging the theory of intelligent design, because they're trying to deliberately build a functioning organism rather than assuming that it would happen by chance.

[Angela K.]

You really are a religious fanatic, aren't you? Intelligent Design is a belief system, not a scientific theory.

When it comes to creating synthetic life forms, I think we have to do a careful cost-benefit analysis before we proceed. However, I think the risks of accidents are being exaggerated. The Venter team has already demonstrated that it's possible to construct an artificial genetic sequence that doesn't have the capacity to reproduce. On the terrorism side, we simply have to keep the technology under strict government regulation, the same way that we keep other potentially dangerous technologies under control. Besides, I don't think that too many geneticists are going to defect to Al Qaeda.

[Warlock]

fyiI liked blowin up asteroids bettr n this one!!!!!! Can we talk about that again? WHO CARES about whethere microscopic bugs r real or manmade!!!!

[Tim Stevens]

I think Venter is getting a bit ahead of himself when he proclaims that "Over the next 20 years, synthetic genomics is going to become the standard for making anything." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter) So are the rest of you in taking for granted that Venter is correct in assuming that an artificially-created genome will "boot up" a cell. In truth, nobody knows whether it actually will work. Until it does, this is really nothing more than a tempest in a petri dish.

[Mothra]

The mutant creatures in Japanese 1950s sci-fi movies, like Rodan and Godzilla and Mothra, were all misunderstood, perceived incorrectly by people who viewed them as just menaces. It's interesting that years later, we're actually on the verge of creating artificial life forms and we're looking at them in the same way. There certainly is the capability that they could be used for good, though you don't know whether there's a evil mastermind someplace who is going to try to build an alien life form to take over the world. I guess if you can imagine it, it's possible.

[Mr. Science]

There's really no way to prevent the eventual creation of artificial life forms, because even if the U.S. or EU outlaw it, the research simply will migrate to countries where it is unregulated. Frankly, I would rather accept a certain amount of risk, in order for the U.S. to maintain its present lead in synthetic biology research. If we don't, other countries are going to reap the potentially enormous economic rewards when industrial applications are found for the technology.

As far as the risks, it's a safe bet that anybody who makes a synthetic life form--say, a microbe that produces fuel or drug ingredients--is going to program that organism not to reproduce. Otherwise, the patent on the life form would be worthless, because anybody who obtained a specimen could simply grow their own copies.

[neokoumy]

Maybe that's a good idea, to be a GM person seems to be so cool!

[Transcendental Nectar of Satsanga]

Did Scientists Create Artificial Life? (see http://mahaprabhu.net/satsanga/2008/03/02/did-scientists-create-artificial-life/ )

Recently in January 2008, there was request for some comments on the claim of some scientists about “a major step towards creating the first ever artificial life form” on the forum. Thus we would be happy to offer some thoughts on this topic of profound relevance the Krishna Consciousness movement.

Dan Gibson, Ph.D., et al. has published this work online in the Science Journal. According to the paper, this team comprised of 17 researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has created the largest man-made DNA structure by synthesizing and assembling the 582,970 base pair genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0. Further the publication has claimed that in the next step, which is ongoing at the JCVI, the team will attempt to create a living bacterial cell based entirely on the synthetically made genome.

However the fact remains that the question of life is far from being answered by the recent claims of this group even though it has managed to hog the limelight all over the world. Several critics who are publishing articles in newspapers and magazines all over the world have also accepted this fact. The world must have a proper critic of the question of life. Our Gurumaharaja said, we should not believe everything that is being passed off in the name of knowledge. Gurumaharaja dedicated his entire life in carrying out the instruction of Srila Prabhupada to preach “Life comes from Life.”

It is a fact that nowadays there is no unanimous agreement in the scientific world about the question of artificial life. For eg, Carl Zimmer says, “there is a lot we don’t understand about life, of course, but Venter’s project isn’t going to answer all the questions … But what does doing this really signify? What does it teach us about life that we didn’t know before? …The scientists didn’t assemble the fragments of DNA by themselves, nor did they program robots to do so. Instead, they injected the fragments into E. coli, and let the bacteria do the job themselves. Eventually, it turned out that E. coli could only build up a quarter of the genome. The scientists don’t quite know why. So they injected those big chunks of Mycoplasma DNA into yeast. Lo and behold, the yeast were able to finish up the job for the scientists. They don’t quite know how the yeast did their own biochemical magic either. I would assume that God would have this kind of stuff figured out….Out of 382 genes that the scientists have identified as potentially essential, 110 of them are absolute mysteries. Scientists have almost no idea what they’re for. … Scientists have gotten very good at manipulating genes — at copying them or using them to make biotechnology products like insulin — but they still know relatively little about how genes work together in living things. “

The question was discussed in our last BI Satsanga which is organized everyday Sunday 6 PM India time worldwide on Skype. HH Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaja (Dr. M. A. Marchetti), explained the technical difficulties that are today inherent in modern science towards explaining life, inspite of the extensive research by the scientists all over the world, including the Venter Institute. After discussing basic terminologies that are relevant to the question of artificial life, Maharaja explained, that,

It is quite a feat to synthesize the DNA molecule. Of course creating DNA molecule itself is not life. It is only one part of the living organism. But all it is a chemical process. It is not a creation of life in the sense of the term.
How much the DNA molecule contributes to the bacteria or a living entity, it is uncertain. Because they can take out that DNA and replace it with another, completely different in another bacterium. So it is uncertain that how much that DNA effects the life force in the bacterium.
It is like replacing the heart with a plastic heart. They can’t put the heart in a machine and expect the machine to become alive. So it is not the heart that is making it alive. Life is already there.
HH Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaja (Dr. M. A. Marchetti) explained that Srila Prabhupada gave us the Vedantic conception that life comes from life. Maharaja also explained that our HDG Bhaktisvarupa Damodara Swami (Dr. T. D. Singh), carried this message of Srila Prabhupada all over the world and also to the best men of science like leading scientists of the world. HDG Bhaktisvarupa Damodara Swami (Dr. T. D. Singh) explained to all of us that life is completely transcendental to the assembly of molecules and it is never a by product or emergent product of molecular interactions. HH Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaja (Dr. M. A. Marchetti) also explained that scientists should give credit to God. Just as after the Morse code was invented, the first message sent by Samuel Morse, was, “What had God wrought.” Thus he has given credit to God.

We have uploaded this ‘Satsanga MP3′ and to download/hear please click at: http://www.archive.org/download/SatsangasMarch2008/03_Feb_2008_HH_BMPS_BI_Weekly_Satsanga.mp3 .

All Glories to all Sadhus, Guru and Vaisnavas.

Your humble servants
Purushottama Jagannatha Das &
Sushen Das

see: http://mahaprabhu.net/satsanga/2008/03/02/did-scientists-create-artificial-life/

[Can Emergence Theory help us understand the Origin of Life?]

Today the evolution theory is facing internal criticism in the scientific world. This has lead to the fact that many scientists are pushing a new concept, which they call ‘Emergence Theory’ by which they are hoping that they could explain the most difficult problem, ‘Origin of Life’.

The basic concept of ‘Emergence Theory’ is that when a large number of complex reactions occur at a time, it may lead to completely new phenomena such as life. For example, in a glass of water we don’t see high waves and tides. However, when water is aggregated in large quantity, as we find in an ocean, then new phenomena appear such as waves and tides. Similarly, scientists who are proponents of emergence theory surmise that, if many complex chemical reactions are carried out simultaneously, life may arise all of a sudden.

In the Satsanga, HH Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaj discussed the fundamental drawbacks of ‘Emergence Theory’. Maharaj explained that, waves and tides are physical phenomenon and they can be explained by the ordinary laws of physics. On the other hand, the major symptom of life is consciousness. But consciousness does not follow any of the ordinary physical laws because it is something completely different from matter. Current physical laws are not able to explain how matter becomes aware of itself. To propose that consciousness arises from complex chemical reactions would thus produce something that could not be explained in terms of physical laws. Thus the new concept, ‘Emergence Theory’ is also not sufficient to provide any tangible clue about the origin of life.

[Anand]

well weve all known about the south korean scientist who had claimed that he could produce human stem cells and later we all found it to be fraud. i agree with the members of iskon. chemicals cannot create life, rather life creates chemicals. however, if by altering genes we can make something usefull and can later on save our planet from catastrophs such as global warming and energy crisis. i would appreciate such moves. but at the end, however, i beleive that god controlls every thingh and mans actions are limited. i wonder what man would do, if supposingly the hiv virus mutates and travels from mosquito to man. it would immediatly create the end of all manking, would man be able to do anything than.

[HIV educator]

This is from http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/why-cant-mosquitoes-carry-hivaids.html

Even in theory, it would be very unlikely that HIV could be spread in such a fashion. With malaria and other insect-borne infections, the organisms survive and actually multiply in the insect. HIV, in contrast, does not survive outside the body for very long, and it does not replicate in insects. In addition, mosquitoes transmit malaria and other infections when they inject saliva into the victim. HIV does not get into the insect's saliva much at all, and mosquitoes do not inject blood into the victim. Furthermore, blood that remains on the bug's mouth or other body parts after it bites an AIDS victim also does not pose much risk, because the amount of blood present is very small, and the insect usually does not go directly from one feeding to another.