Building Better Biology

Synthetic biology is moving ahead leaps and bounds:


In the above dialog you will hear mention of Craig Venter. He is a scientist/entrepreneur busy pushing this new technology. You can see a presentation by Venter at a TED Conference. In the talk he mentions the following work:

In October 2007, a team of scientists headed by controversial DNA researcher Craig Venter and Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith announced that they plan to create the first artificial life form in history by creating a synthetic chromosome which they plan to inject into the M. genitalium bacterium, potentially resulting in an artificial species dubbed Mycoplasma laboratorium or Mycoplasma JCVI-1.0 after the research centre in which it was created, the J. Craig Venter Institute in the United States.

On 24 January 2008, the same team reported to have synthesized the complete 582,970 base pair genome of M. genitalium (a key gene that enables the wild organism to cause disease was knocked out). The final stage of synthesis was completed inside a yeast cell.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_Genitalium#Synthetic_life

If you watch Craig Venter give his TED Conference talk, you will hear about application of synthetic biology to the energy crisis/global warming:

"We have modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry and becoming a major source of energy, we think we will have fourth-generation fuels in about 18 months, with CO2 as the fuel stock." Biofuel alternatives to oil are third-generation. The next step is life forms that feed on CO2 and give off fuel such as methane gas as waste.