THE ENTIRE media across the world went crazy about the creation of artificial life ever since a run-of-the-mill milestone was crossed at J Craig Venter Institute, USA on October 6. The news reports sensationalised the construction of a “synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals” and speculated that Dr Venter was poised to announce the creation of the first artificial life form on earth.

 

It is far from true. The hype that is going on currently is akin to the Indian media covering breaking news about “nuclear capable” missiles every time India or Pakistan test-launched one of their powered darts. Based on decades old designs and technology, these scud versions have only certain kilograms of payload. Nuclear capability has just no relation with payload. That could consist of anything, from roses and rasagoollas to RDX and virus generators. Similarly, the current developmental work is more like a conceptualisation of a new type of chassis. What sort of vehicle could possibly fit into it, what engine could power it and where that vehicle would take mankind to are in the realm of fiction.

 

An official statement from J Craig Venter Institute had earlier clarified that it applied in 2006 for patent rights of ‘Mycoplasma laboratorium’, a chromosome nicknamed Synthia. Synthia has the minimum number of genes (currently thought to be 381) necessary for a bacterium to live. However, it cannot reproduce. The chromosome can in no way be considered as synthetic life. Furthermore, it is largely but not entirely artificial. In fact, it has being created from an already existing organism called ‘Mycoplasma genitalium’. The single cell organism was made by knocking out some 80 per cent of the genes present in ‘M genitalium’ and renaming the remaining 20 per cent as ‘M laboratorium’.

 

The fact of the matter is that the J Craig Venter Institute is the laboratory of a ‘no profit no loss’ based institute that is involved in research in genomics and studies the social implications of such actions. Venter has adopted drastic lifestyle changes to reduce the risk of stroke after having found that he is prone to heart disease. Since October 2006, he is no longer involved with the venture Celera Genomics, which was founded by him. Celera created a private database of genomic data, its work running parallel to the public actions of the Human Genome Project (HGP), with which Venter had a long association.

 

HGP itself was an initiative of ‘The Institute for Genomic Research’ (TIGR) that Venter founded in 1992. His TIGR team decoded the genome of ‘Haemophilus influenzae’ bacterium, the first free-living organism, using his new whole genome shotgun technique. The techniques have been employed by TIGR to sequence over 50 genomes to date.

In 1998, Dr Venter founded Celera Genomics to sequence the human genome using new mathematical algorithms, new automated DNA sequencing machines and the whole genome shotgun technique. The international science journal ‘Science’, in February 2001, carried the publication of the human genome culminating the completion of this research.

 

Venter’s present laboratory performs research in such fields as environmental genomic analysis, clean energy, synthetic biology, and genomic medicine. In fact, the idea behind creating Synthia is to eventually cultivate a new energy source to help alleviate worldwide energy concerns. That cannot be termed as trying to play god.