• Question: As a scientist has managed to create an artificial cell, would it be possible to create an entirely new life form using a combination of the process and artificial selection?

    Asked by jklein to Darren, Deuan, Duncan, Lori-An, Michelle on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Darren Nesbeth

      Darren Nesbeth answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Theoretically. But it would take ages. Millions of years. It would be quicker to design and program the new life form yourself.

    • Photo: Michelle Hudson-Shore

      Michelle Hudson-Shore answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      I think it would be many hundreds of years in the future and then not very likely. Just think how many thousands of years it took for life to evolve on Earth I think it would be almost impossible to shorten that process in a lab.

    • Photo: Duncan Hull

      Duncan Hull answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Yes its entirely possible, this a very active area of research is called synthetic biology. Lots of scientists are interested in and working in this area.

    • Photo: Lori-An Etherington

      Lori-An Etherington answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      An entirely new lifeform has already been created, Craig Venter and his team have built the genome of a bacteria from scratch (this may well be what you are refering to) so yes I would say it is entirely possible, but the question of whether it should be done is a different question. These scientists have been accused of ‘playing God’ in creating life that would never have existed naturally. On the other side of the arguement technology such as this has been proposed by Venter to help with making biofuels, soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and even manufacture vaccines.

    • Photo: Deuan Jones

      Deuan Jones answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Well selection has to work on something – so you need a starting point, but that’s also the case funnily enough with what Craig Venter (the scientist who thinks he’s created an artificial cell) has done.

      Venter and his team copied the DNA from one bacteria with some small modifications. Then they took another bacterial cell removed it’s own DNA and placed the DNA they had copied into the cell. It lived.

      There’s a lot of nonsense being spoken about this in newspapers and interviews saying that Venter has created artificial life or that we’re going to become Gods. The truth is that despite incredible advances in our understanding of living cells over the last 50 years, thecreation of life remains beyond us. And I’m quite happy about that.

      The Scientific American magazine ran an article describing Craig Venter as the Lady Gaga of science – an over the top drama queen who just wasnt to promote himself.

      The work is technically brilliant, but it’s just another small advance like millions of scientists make around the world. It doesn’t help us in any way understand how life was created because this is just an artificial process.

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