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Scientists unveil first man-made life form

Genetic researchers alter synthetic bacteria so it won't be infectious

Tom Spears

The Ottawa Citizen; with files from Agence France-Presse

Friday, January 25, 2008

Scientists have created synthetic life using man-made genes, and their first creation is a copy of a natural bacterium that causes a sexually transmitted infection.

They chose Mycoplasma genitalium -- named after the area it infects -- because it has fewer genes than other bacteria. That makes it easier to copy.

While the scientists say they hope eventually to build useful bacteria, little M. genitalium does nothing useful. It just causes a low-grade infection, treatable with antibiotics.

And the timing is unfortunate. Today's announcement comes as Hollywood is scaring audiences with super-diseases from the lab (Resident Evil; I Am Legend), though this one has been intentionally crippled to prevent infection.

Other forms of "synthetic life" will follow, the creators say.

The journal Science, which publishes the research today, says it "represents a step toward the end goal of creating synthetic micro-organisms that could be used for producing biofuels, cleaning up toxic waste, sequestering carbon, or other applications."

The team that built it works for genome researcher and businessman Craig Venter of California.

In test tubes, Nobel Prize-winner Hamilton Smith and his team chemically synthesized large chunks of genetic material, each making up one-eighth to one-quarter of the full gene set, and stored the copies within E. coli bacteria.

Then, they assembled these large pieces in yeast, harnessing some of the yeast cells' own machinery for the task of assembling these parts into working cells.

In a broadcast for reporters, Mr. Smith said the same method would work for creating other synthetic bacteria as well.

They also attached short markers -- DNA bits that don't really belong there -- to identify bacteria with man-made genes.

The synthetic gene set contains all the genes that the natural bacterium has, except for one -- left out intentionally so that the man-made bug would not be infectious.

The patent was publicized by the Ottawa-based bioethics watchdog, ETC Group.

It's the Venter team's second foray into synthetic M. genitalium. Last year, they put real genes in a soup of amino acids to try to build the rest of a cell around the genes.

In 2002, when he announced the project, Mr. Venter told reporters: "We will be cautious about how and where we disclose new techniques. We don't want a group of crazies to deliberately make something that is harmful."

The project was approved by an independent ethics committee.

No one knows yet what the public reaction will be, but there's a precedent. In the 1990s, biotech firms created crops to help farmers. But genetically modified soybeans and corn have been a tough sell in many countries.

None were engineered at first for better nutrition. Some were engineered for use with pesticides; others had a "natural" insect toxin called Bt engineered right into them. Crop scientists approved; many shoppers didn't.

Now Tim Caulfield, a bioethics professor at the University of Alberta, says the decision to model the first synthetic life on an infectious bacterium is again likely to make non-scientists uncomfortable.

"There's definitely a yuck factor to this, in the idea that we don't know the downstream ramifications of this tinkering with life," he said.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

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