In 1998, J. Craig Venter was named R&D Magazine’s
Scientist of the Year, a couple of years before his veritable
race
with the National Institutes of Health, which was attempting to
accomplish the
same thing on a longer time scale.
Venter’s upstart—and highly commercial—methods grated on
some, but they did shorten the amount of time and effort required to build a genetic
map of the human genome. His work, performed through the not-for-profit institute that bears his name, can be seen as test case of how to execute a private sector R&D effort quickly and efficiently.
Venter’s next goal would not unfold so quickly, and in fact it’s only a glimpse at the future. The creation of synthetic
life—announced
to considerable fanfare last Thursday—represents for the J. Craig Venter Institute 15 years and $40 million.
And, given the potential for changing human life, it’s possibly some the best R&D money ever spent. For now, though, we are tempted to ask: is it life? Many are already saying they don’t
think so, while acknowledging the tremendous achievement of stitching a
million base pairs together, fragment by fragment, to create a functional Mycoplasma
mycoides genome. There is no question it is by far the longest molecule
ever crafted in the lab.
The accomplishment has already drawn an imaginary line for environmental
groups and religious
figures to step behind.
The notion that lab-created lifeforms can escape and become
biological weapons is somewhat plausible, but mostly hysterical. We already
have some pretty effective biological weaponry—anthrax for exampls—that’s
unlikely to be outdone anytime soon in the laboratory. As for the spiritual and
moral problems of this accomplishment, there’s plenty of time to discover the
limits of this technique and figure out what is going too far. Rules and
regulations, prematurely applied, could stifle the very innovation we’d like to
see come out of this breakthrough. Stem cell research prompted a similar
reaction that ultimately caused America
to lose ground in this area of R&D.
These questions are not nearly as captivating as seeing the
proof-of-principle—pioneered in the U.S. no less—that genomes can be
designed in the computer, translated chemically in the laboratory, and
transplanted into living cell. The most amazing part? The synthetic genome also
appears to work, self-replicating genomic information.
As with molecules and atoms, the genome is a valuable tool
that we should understand and harness for the advancement of humanity and our
understanding of nature. We have already unleashed the power of elemental
atomic forces through the violent splitting of atoms, for good and for evil;
would we deny ourselves the same access to the genome we are also built from?