The science world is buzzing today over a study in Science, announcing the successful creation of an entirely synthetic genome. Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland inserted a complete DNA sequence into an emptied bacterial cell to form what some are calling artificial life.
While the implications for genetics, evolution, and the very philosophy of life are already garnering debate, medicine might also enter the fray. The proper use of this new technology could yield, for example, therapeutic bacteria. University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan comments on MSNBC that synthetic bacteria could be created to go after specific human infections or maladies, even things such as cholesterol in our system. (That idea could also be bolstered by the findings of another new Science study, this one on the first genetic sequencing of the human microbiome.)
A BBC News Q&A on the Venter study also mentions the possibility of creating bacteria to produce new vaccines. Surely, it’s just one of many ideas we’ll be hearing about in the coming days and years. With this advance, what do you expect to see down the pipeline? How would you like to see the synthetic genome applied to medicine? Let us know in the comments.
Images of synthetic (top, expressing blue reporter genes) and wildtype (bottom) Mycoplasma mycoides courtesy of Science/AAAS
I don’t expect to see anything very different down the pipeline than we would have seen absent this advance. Venter’s group has accomplished a very impressive technical feat, but that’s about it.
If anyone can clearly articulate why the ability to synthesize a complete and functional, but essentially unchanged copy of a genome is fundamentally more powerful than the ability to insert essentially unlimited numbers of mutations, deletions, and substitutions in that genome through conventional genetic engineering, I’m all ears. From the work that’s been presented today, though, I think this sandwich is more bun than beef.
We’ve been here a few times before, starting with poliovirus in 2002. Eckard Wimmer’s lab synthesized a copy of its genome and proved that they could produce infectious virus that way. It was a cool experiment. But eight years later, picornavirologists still study these viruses using a combination of conventional genetic engineering and old-school virology. I think we’ll be at exactly the same point with synthetic bacteria once the current hype storm dissipates.