Building DNA from Scratch

Nature, v. 431, 7 Oct. 2004, p. 624, "Starting from scratch" by Philip Ball (a consultant editor) has some material relevant to abiogenesis v ID, as it describes efforts to create living things using intelligence. The researchers haven't gotten very far, but they make some bold predictions. They've "built live poliovirus from scratch," but viruses are arguably not living things, and they used "mail-order segments of DNA and a viral genome map that is freely available on the Internet." I'd like to see them start with raw inorganic chemicals and elements, even with the map/recipe. Even at that, it took them three years, although now that a couple years have gone by another team managed to build a virus in "just three weeks." This is called "lighting fast" later in the article. Hmmm, how long does it take for a virus to replicate in nature?
As to building something more complex, and definitely alive, "researchers are getting close to determining the smallest set of genes necessary to support a living cell, which might make it possible to cook up a new life form." In other words, they still haven't figured out what the easiest target to aim for would look like. C'mon, guys, life just happened to form when the right chemicals and environmental conditions came together, how hard can it be?

This one quote may be worth more than all my comments: "Synthetic biology is the logical corollary of the realization that cells, like mechanical or electronic devices, are exquisitely 'designed' -- albeit by evolution rather than on the drawing board." Heh, heh, heh -- Okay, there really is an elephant in the living room, but so help me, it belongs there! Right. Tell me another one.

While "Bacterial genomes are within the range of current DNA-synthesis technology" according to the president of one company, the article notes that "bacterial genomes must be embedded within a cell and its attendant biochemical machinery, making them much harder to synthesize than viruses." Researchers have begun working on it, "But building a new bacterial genome is not just a matter of chemistry -- you have to design the circuitry too."



Until Next Time,

David Bump
Philippians 3: 13 Brethren, I
count not myself to have
apprehended: but [this] one thing
[I do], forgetting those things
which are behind, and reaching
forth unto those things which are
before, 14 I press toward the
mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus.

http://home.att.net/~david.bump