The Guardian has a story that sends the needle on our hype detector soaring into the red zone. According to the article Dr. Craig Venter, a DNA researcher:
"is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth...The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes."
The technical achievement seems quite impressive, but it seems somewhat of a stretch to claim that Dr. Venter's lab has created a new life form. What Dr. Venter has done, and we don't minimize the achievement, is to construct a chromosome out of the raw chemical materials of DNA and insert it into a bacterium. This is a notable technical accomplishment, but it's a long way from creating a new form of life. The Guardian continues:
The wholly synthetically reconstructed chromosome ... is then transplanted into a living bacterial cell and in the final stage of the process it is expected to take control of the cell and in effect become a new life form.
It will not be a new life form. It will still be a bacterium. It may, if the synthetic chromosome can successfully integrate with the cell's biochemical machinery, have different characteristics than any bacterium that existed before, but that no more makes it a "new life form" than a new variety of roses is a new life form.
The Guardian seems to recognize that it has overstated things a bit and tries to pull back somewhat from its earlier claim:
The team of scientists has already successfully transplanted the genome of one type of bacterium into the cell of another, effectively changing the cell's species. Mr Venter said he was "100% confident" the same technique would work for the artificially created chromosome.
The new life form will depend for its ability to replicate itself and metabolise on the molecular machinery of the cell into which it has been injected, and in that sense it will not be a wholly synthetic life form. However, its DNA will be artificial, and it is the DNA that controls the cell and is credited with being the building block of life.
In other words, what Dr. Venter will be doing is a bit like inserting a new operating system into a computer. This is not the same as inventing a whole new kind of computer. It's not clear from the article that the new chromosome will even function in the cell, but if it does what Dr. Venter has done will be to have designed a program for a computer that will make the computer do things it didn't do before.
The Guardian then adds this disturbing quote from Dr. Venter:
"We are not afraid to take on things that are important just because they stimulate thinking," he said. "We are dealing in big ideas. We are trying to create a new value system for life. When dealing at this scale, you can't expect everybody to be happy."
A new value system for life? What does that mean? Aldous Huxley must be smiling.
RLC