This really
throws down the glove and real bioengineering will follow. Also keep in mind that we now possess the
Rosetta stone of DNA work is at least two alien skulls and their genomes. What we need now are ten times as many
researchers.
Multiple
strands of humanity will soon be engineered particularly for Space work and
plausibly for deep sea work as well.
Both are obvious. Known alien
examples all scream this level of genetic design. Even the Starchild was clearly engineered to
max out the brain and its special protection.
This was done at the expense of been Earth friendly.
All these
questions will be tackled head on in the next generation.
First
life forms to pass on artificial DNA engineered by US scientists
Organisms carrying beefed-up DNA code could
be designed to churn out new drugs that could not otherwise be made
The Guardian, Wednesday
7 May 2014
The latest study moves life beyond the DNA
code of G, T, C and A – the molecules or bases that pair up in the DNA helix.
Photograph: Scott Camazine /Alamy
The first living organism to carry and
pass down to future generations an expanded genetic code has been created by
American scientists, paving the way for a host of new life forms whose cells
carry synthetic DNA that looks nothing like the normal genetic code of natural
organisms.
Researchers say the work challenges the
dogma that the molecules of life making up DNA are "special".
Organisms that carry the beefed-up DNA code could be designed to churn out new
forms of drugs that otherwise could not be made, they have claimed.
"This has very important implications
for our understanding of life," said Floyd Romesberg, whose team created
the organism at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.
"For so long people have thought that DNA was the way it was because it
had to be, that it was somehow the perfect molecule."
From the moment life gained a foothold on
Earth the diversity of organisms has been written in a DNA code of four
letters. The latest study moves life beyond G, T, C and A – the molecules or
bases that pair up in the DNA helix – and introduces two new letters of life: X
and Y.
Romesberg started out with E coli, a bug
normally found in soil and carried by people. Into this he inserted a loop of
genetic material that carried normal DNA and two synthetic DNA bases. Though
known as X and Y for simplicity, the artificial DNA bases have much longer
chemical names, which themselves abbreviate to d5SICS and dNaM.
In living organisms, G, T, C and A come
together to form two base pairs, G-C and T-A. The extra synthetic DNA forms a
third base pair, X-Y, according to the study in Nature. These base pairs
are used to make genes, which cells use as templates for making proteins.
Romesberg found that when the modified
bacteria divided they passed on the natural DNA as expected. But they also
replicated the synthetic code and passed that on to the next generation. That
generation of bugs did the same.
"What we have now, for the first time, is
an organism that stably harbours a third base pair, and it is utterly different
to the natural ones," Romesberg said. For now the synthetic DNA does not
do anything in the cell. It just sits there. But Romesberg now wants to tweak
the organism so that it can put the artificial DNA to good use.
"This is just a beautiful piece of
work," said Martin Fussenegger, a synthetic biologist at ETH Zurich.
"DNA replication is really the cream of the crop of evolution which
operates the same way in all living systems. Seeing that this machinery works
with synthetic base pairs is just fascinating."
The possibilities for such organisms are
still up for grabs. The synthetic DNA code could be used to build biological
circuits in cells which do not interfere with the natural biological function;
scientists could make cells which use the DNA to manufacture proteins not known
to exist in nature. The development could lead to a vast range of protein-based
drugs.
The field of synthetic biology has
been controversial in the past. Some observers have raised concerns that
scientists could create artificial organisms which could then escape from
laboratories and spark an environmental or health disaster.
More than 10 years ago, the scientist Eckard
Wimmer, at Stony Brook University, in New York, recreated the polio virus from
scratch to highlight the dangers.
Romesberg said that organisms carrying his
"unnatural" DNA code had a built-in safety mechanism. The modified
bugs could only survive if they were fed the chemicals they needed to replicate
the synthetic DNA. Experiments in the lab showed that without these chemicals,
the bugs steadily lost the synthetic DNA as they could no longer make it.
"There are a lot of people concerned
about synthetic biology because it deals with life, and those
concerns are completely justified," Romesberg said. "Society needs to
understand what it is and make rational decisions about what it wants."
Ross Thyer, at the University of Texas, in Austin, suggested the synthetic DNA
could become an essential part of an organism's own DNA. "Human
engineering would result in an organism which permanently contains an expanded
genetic alphabet, something that, to our knowledge, no naturally occurring life
form has accomplished.
"What would such an organism do with an
expanded genetic alphabet? We don't know. Could it lead to more sophisticated
storage of biological information? More complicated or subtle regulatory
networks? These are all questions we can look forward to exploring."
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