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Awesomely cool and more than mildly scary:
Jan. 25th, 2008 | 10:05 am
Human made bacteria -- or at least human made bacterial DNA.
Crossing the line between creating a short DNA sequence to a more complex bacterial sequence is a signifcant step. We're no place near creating the entire human DNA sequence from DNA blocks (and in any case, mammal biology creates the additional problem of working with both cellular and mitochondrial DNA). But we're definitely closer.
This fascinates me, because I have a minor genetic illness, multiple osteochondroma, that could in theory be completely eliminated from future humans by tweaking just a very, very small part of my DNA code. For those suffering from considerably more dehabilitating genetic illnesses, or genetic carriers of these diseases eager to have children, this is even more exciting.
But as a speculative fiction writer/reader, it scares me as well. As the article notes, rebuilding the smallpox virus is now completely possible, and since we haven't identified the genes that cause insanity (assuming that such genes actually exist and can be modified/programmed, an assumption I know at least a few of my readers strongly contest), this is most definitely a two edged technology: capable of healing, and certainly capable of weaponry and death. Whether or not anyone would actually bother to go to the expense and effort of creating and releasing a virus/bacterium that by definition would have only a chaotic, random effect on the population is questionable, of course -- but I'm not sure we can entirely rule it out, either.
Crossing the line between creating a short DNA sequence to a more complex bacterial sequence is a signifcant step. We're no place near creating the entire human DNA sequence from DNA blocks (and in any case, mammal biology creates the additional problem of working with both cellular and mitochondrial DNA). But we're definitely closer.
This fascinates me, because I have a minor genetic illness, multiple osteochondroma, that could in theory be completely eliminated from future humans by tweaking just a very, very small part of my DNA code. For those suffering from considerably more dehabilitating genetic illnesses, or genetic carriers of these diseases eager to have children, this is even more exciting.
But as a speculative fiction writer/reader, it scares me as well. As the article notes, rebuilding the smallpox virus is now completely possible, and since we haven't identified the genes that cause insanity (assuming that such genes actually exist and can be modified/programmed, an assumption I know at least a few of my readers strongly contest), this is most definitely a two edged technology: capable of healing, and certainly capable of weaponry and death. Whether or not anyone would actually bother to go to the expense and effort of creating and releasing a virus/bacterium that by definition would have only a chaotic, random effect on the population is questionable, of course -- but I'm not sure we can entirely rule it out, either.