Scientists Transform One Type of Organism Into Another

The creativity of biotechnologists sometimes astounds. In this instance, as reported in Scientific American, scientists transformed one type of bacteria into another by transferring the latter’s total genetic makeup into the former. Why transmute one species into another?

As radical as this transformation is…it represents only the first step toward man-made organisms. “Synthetic biology itself and the synthetic genome still remain to be proven but we are much closer to knowing that it is theoretically possible,” biologist J. Craig Venter says. “Just the naked DNA, just the chromosome itself without any accessory proteins, is all that is necessary to boot up this cell system. It really simplifies the task.”

The goal is ultimately to design new organisms that fulfill specified functions, such as manufacturing new fuels to replace oil and gas or capturing carbon dioxide, without evolving so that these capabilities are locked in over time. Venter hopes to create fuels from such an engineered organism within a decade or less.

Do we have the wisdom to become the creators of new and novel life forms? Is this safe? Such questions are beyond my pay grade. But boy…