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October 9, 2007
Confused Americans for Truth - The Story Behind the Synthetic Life Story
Since my pet works in the field of molecular biology, I thought I should comment on the recent story about Dr. Craig Venter creating an artificial bacterium.
New species of bacteria are created all the time as part of the natural process of evolution. For example, some of the bacteria in the human mouth contain pieces of cannibalized human DNA. Those weren't put there by mad scientists working in secret government laboratories. We already have artificially recombined DNA floating around and there have been no disasters. Indeed, far more damage has been done to our society by a natural mutation of a retrovirus than anything anyone's done in a lab.
What's different here is not that they're putting stuff into DNA, it's that they're trying to take stuff out. The Mycoplasma laboratorium Venter is creating is supposed to be the minimum set of genes necessary to enable a bacterium to survive. The theory is that genes which perform specific profit-making functions (e.g. turning biological waste into ethanol fuel) could be dropped into Venter's organism with minimal side effects. Venter is aware of these applications and that's why he patented his process as early as possible. Keep in mind, however, that the life created from Venter's seeds will be bacterial. There is no risk of it developing into something that looks like Natasha Henstridge and goes around killing people. Furthermore, nobody is going to use Venter's work to create a new plague. The way to create a new plague would be to put an antibiotic defense pump into an old disease. The Department of Homeland Security has already considered that possibility, and the agenda behind the eight Biological Resource Centers is to find new ways to stop virulent bacteria that become resistant to antibiotics. The eight centers include the NMPDR, which is Bruce's group, and Pathema, which is a subsidiary of the J. Craig Venter Institute.
The truth is that a bacteria created from Venter's minimalist template is less likely to be dangerous than something built using standard recombinant methods. A minimal organism, deprived of the redundancy built into normal life forms, is only one mutation away from complete cell death.
So, there is not a safety issue. Is there an ethical issue?
Beyond bacteria, there is a whole domain of organisms called eukaryotes. These organisms include cats, fungi, every known multicellular organism, protozoa, and Dan Rather. The average eukaryotic cell is twenty times the size of a bacterium. They have millions of DNA nucleotides instead of thousands, and their DNA is stored in a sack in the center of the cell instead of floating amongst the protoplasm. What we know about bacteria is encyclopedic next to what we don't know about eukaryotes. Any question of ethics is going to be on the eukaryotic side of the wall, and it is a real wall, not a slippery slope. If you learn nothing else from me today, then learn this: if a scientist tells you that creating an artificial fungus isn't a problem because artificial bacteria were okay, tell him it is a completely different thing. A bacteria is a soup of simple chemical reactions. A eukaryotic cell is a machine with distinct parts, and if we understood how eukaryotic DNA worked we'd have a cure for cancer. Insist on the understanding first.
In the meantime, I wish Dr. Venter the best of luck. If he develops a cheap bio-fuel that causes Al Gore to shut up about Global Warming, then I will personally nominate him for sainthood.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Tue 11:59 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (0) | More Confused Americans for Truth | Tags: Al Gore bacteria bioinformatics BRC environmentalism ethics eukaryota microbiology NMPDR Pathema science
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