Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute published results yesterday describing the successful construction of the first self-replicating, synthetic bacterial cell. They’ve christened it Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 (I like to call it Mike). Working from that idea that “In essence, scientists are digitizing biology by converting the A, C, T, and G’s of the chemical makeup of DNA into 1’s and 0’s in a computer. But can one reverse the process and start with 1’s and 0’s in a computer to define the characteristics of a living cell?”; Venter calls it ‘the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer’.

The scientific team headed by Drs. Craig Venter, Hamilton Smith and Clyde Hutchison spent 15 years working on the first synthetic bacterial cell. Always conscious that the work they were doing was monumental; throughout the course of this work, the team contemplated, discussed, and engaged in outside review of the ethical and societal implications of their work. JCVI say “The ability to routinely write the software of life will usher in a new era in science, and with it, new products and applications such as advanced biofuels, clean water technology, and new vaccines and medicines.”

The genomes were designed on the computer, chemically made in the laboratory and transplanted into a recipient cell to produce a new self-replicating cell controlled only by the synthetic genome.The team have also designed and inserted what they’ve called watermarkes into the cell that don’t create any proteins but contain a hidden code. These are specifically designed segments of DNA that use the “alphabet” of genes and proteins that enable the researcher to spell out words and phrases. The watermarks are an essential means to prove that the genome is synthetic and not native, and to identify the laboratory of origin. Encoded in the watermarks is a new DNA code for writing words, sentences and numbers. In addition to the new code there is a web address to send emails to if you can successfully decode the new code, the names of 46 authors and other key contributors and three quotations: “TO LIVE, TO ERR, TO FALL, TO TRIUMPH, TO RECREATE LIFE OUT OF LIFE.” – JAMES JOYCE; “SEE THINGS NOT AS THEY ARE, BUT AS THEY MIGHT BE.”-A quote from the book, “American Prometheus”; “WHAT I CANNOT BUILD, I CANNOT UNDERSTAND.” – RICHARD FEYNMAN.

Scanning electron micrographs of M. mycoides JCVI-syn1

Incase you’re worrying that the new cell’s going to escape into the outside world JCVI say that “researchers will be able to engineer synthetic bacterial cells so they cannot live outside of the lab or other production environments. This is done by, for example, ensuring that these organisms have built in dependencies for certain nutrients without which they cannot survive. They can also be engineered with so called “suicide genes” that kick in to prevent the organism from living outside of the lab or environment in which they were grown. ”

The potential for this research and the next steps for JVCI’s researchers are exciting. “The team is now ready to build more complex organisms with useful properties.  For example, many, including scientists at SGI, are already using available sequencing information to engineer cells that can produce energy, pharmaceuticals, and industrial compounds, and sequester carbon dioxide.”

Venter maintains that it’s not a second genesis as they’ve not created life “from scratch” but as they’ve used an existing cell; they’ve created a new species. This new cell has around 1 million base pairs into a coherent genome.  By comparison, the human genome contains more than 3 billion pairs, so don’t don’t worry about synthetic mammals any time soon.

[JCVI]