Manmade DNA in Lab

[Linus]

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — Scientists announced a bold step Thursday in the enduring quest to create artificial life. They've produced a living cell powered by manmade DNA.


While such work can evoke images of Frankenstein-like scientific tinkering, it also is exciting hopes that it could eventually lead to new fuels, better ways to clean polluted water, faster vaccine production and more.
Is it really an artificial life form?


The inventors call it the world's first synthetic cell, although this initial step is more a re-creation of existing life – changing one simple type of bacterium into another – than a built-from-scratch kind.


But Maryland genome-mapping pioneer J. Craig Venter said his team's project paves the way for the ultimate, much harder goal: designing organisms that work differently from the way nature intended for a wide range of uses. Already he's working with ExxonMobil in hopes of turning algae into fuel.


"This is the first self-replicating species we've had on the planet whose parent is a computer," Venter told reporters.


And the report, being published Friday in the journal Science, is triggering excitement in this growing field of synthetic biology.


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I'm still trying to decide whether this is good or not. Part of me says, yes. Great! Perhaps we could create stem cells (and thus, remove the fight against them). Or perhaps (as the article mentioned above) we could create a new fuel source.

But there's an ethical part of me that wonders about this. From my experience a a security computer geek, one thing I have learned is that for every tool that has a good use someone will use it in ways we never conceived or intended to conceive.

Is this the dawn of a new age on Earth for mankind or just mad science?