Life from scratch?

Twenty-four scientists with a powerful computer and forty million dollars

Broke the genetic code of a certain bacteria.

They poured four bottles of chemicals to a lab machine and voila!

DNA strings came out saying “hola!”

Enlisting the tailor-like qualities of yeast and E coli

They sewed all those swatches into one long DNA.

Then they turned and befriended another bacteria

to host the whole length and watch it become even more bacteria!

All these they did to get Synthia, the mascot that fuses digitalia and biologia.

Above is a clumsy attempt of a science writer like me to capture how the hottest achievement in science happened. Making use of the ingredients in a process that is detailed in the May 20 issue of the Journal Science, Craig Venter and the other 23 scientists used the tools and ingredients above to make a complete DNA not from nature but from the lab, giving life to an organism that multiplied.

Mycoplasma mycoides is a kind of bacteria that causes mastitis in female goats and it is the DNA of that bacteria that was used by Venter’s team. But they did not use the DNA of the bacteria itself by taking it out and putting it in another organism. They only studied its complete DNA sequence and extracted all the information that constitutes it. Based on that information, they used laboratory chemicals to make strands of DNA. The next step was to put the strands together to form a whole new synthetic genome. They did this with the help of yeast and E coli that served as tailors to the strands stitching them all together. Then they transplanted the newly woven DNA to another kind of bacteria whose natural DNA had been removed. The bacteria-in-waiting, M capricolum received the DNA and it divided repeatedly giving rise to more bacteria.

Venter’s team did not do this because they were particularly fond of bacteria found in goats with tender breasts. They did this because by doing this, they think they will eventually be able to make custom-made genes in the lab that will do specific functions, like making enabling algae to produce fuel. This is a particularly meaningful aim as our fossil fuel sources are running out. Venter and his team have a $600-million check from ExxonMobil waiting if they would be able to achieve the milestones leading to this.

In biological terms, self-replication is the working definition of “life.” This explains why this experiment dominated science news and science debates around the world since its announcement last week. There were claims that the experiment has created life from scratch which naturally impinges on the long-held sanctity and irreducibility of life, including by many religious. There are also those who seriously cautioned against unregulated use of this discovery because we do not yet know what the release of synthetic life will do to the environment. US President Obama immediately convened an ethics committee to review what this could mean. Many also warned against the possible harmful uses of this technology but that is a problem that has hounded the double-sided nature of any technology because they are conceived and used by us humans who have at least two sides to our nature.

From what I have read, among scientists, particularly biologists, they hail this more as a resounding triumph for technology than a deep fundamental discovery. Nicolas Wade in the New York Times wrote in the May 20 issue that Eckard Wimmer of the State University in New York synthesized the genome of the polio virus, 7,500 units long, in 2002. Venter and his team basically did the same thing but they produced a genome that was over a million units in length. My favorite analogy came from a quote from British geneticist Steve Jones in an article by Tim Adams of the Guardian (May 23, 2010): “The idea that this is ‘playing God’ is just daft because it would be analogous to taking an Apple Mac program and making it work on a PC — and then saying you have created a computer.”

As far as Synthia is concerned, it cannot go invade any space without being identified since Venter’s team even added markers in the DNA that would undoubtedly identify the DNA as Synthia’s. This is because it is the only DNA with the names of the research team written on it as well as an e-mail address to contact once you get that far in your research. It even has a code, which if you crack would read this line from James Joyce: “To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.”

Life out of life. Maybe it is this artistic line literally written inside Synthia would give us perspective. It reminds us that this is not the subject of a purely scientific debate. Synthia was still made from this “scratch” that is life — the three bacteria as well as the humble yeast.

“Life” is to all of us, a term so dense with meaning that we do not just think of biology when we hear it mentioned. It can be the planet or it can be the growing sensation in your womb. It can be what carbon or water hints on, it can be motion in cells as well as bodies that dance. It can be centipede or spiders or wildebeest or seagulls or crows. It can be your beloved or some far away child in a strange land. It can be 3.8 billion years of evolution or a sing-song series of sunrises and sunsets in one human lifetime. It is for the most part, a mystery to us all. It is understandable and so human that we all get jumpy when anyone claims a key to unlock life. I think Venter and his team should continue their work refining this key to biological life. But I think the rest of us should remain open and vigilant in understanding and weighing its possible implications in “larger” life. There is too much of life, other than that defined by biology, at stake.

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