The last few pages of this November issue's Wired surprised me with an exciting update on Craig Venter's activities: after publishing the first map of the human genome in 2001 and manufacturing an entire synthetic bacterium genome in 2010, Venter has been working on converting DNA extracted from microbial samples into digital information that can then be synthesised into a functioning cell.
It's kind of like treating DNA as a type of software that can be rebooted into a living form, and it suggests potential applications that seem like the stuff of science fiction: vaccines, which currently requires viral transplantation into hen eggs, could be rapidly manufactured in the face of global epidemics; personalised medicine could be prescribed and transmitted across the globe and even out to astronauts working in the space; and – more compellingly – alien DNA encoded from Mars could be transmitted back to Earth in less than 4.3 minutes and replicated in a maximum containment lab!
The interview also touches on some of the pithy ethics of synthetic biology; the most significant point in my opinion being that the responsible use of innovation is nothing new to synthetic biology but rather an inherent aspect of human ingenuity, dating back to the question of whether fire should be used to keep warm or to destroy a rival's settlement.
"My greatest fear is not the abuse of technology, but that we will not use it at all, and turn our backs to an amazing opportunity"
Credits: R. Highfield, Wired, Nov 2013. P140 – 145
