A milestone in synthetic biology

Today Craig Venter's group published the first "booting" of a bacterial genome. It's a major step towards creation of totally artificial living organisms. Conventional genetic engineering merely fools around with the natural slightly, throwing gum into the gears of life. Synthetic biology is about completely novel design and creation. Design is tough, but we can start with natural sequences. DNA synthesis is no big deal, though assembling megabase sequences is not so easy. The final step, taking raw DNA and booting it, like booting a computer from a sequence of bits, has been thought an obstacle. Now it's been done.


The full report appears in Science, with an accompanying news item.

So why is this theology? Well, we are made of molecules. And the ability to control those molecules, and create new life forms, in ways entirely unlike nature... it's not playing God, it's being God.