Imagine a point in time in the future when life is engineer-able and life form is customizable to the desire of the creator. Different shapes of life form emerges with clearly defined functionality bringing convinience to homo sapiens. Wait long no more my friends.
US scientists have recently able to synthesize a bacterial cell from a chemically synthezied genome which is then transplanted to a bacterial cell. The group is led by genetic research pioneer J. Craig Venter.
"This is the first synthetic cell that's been made and we call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromosome, made with four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesizer, starting with information in a computer," said Venter [source: www.aaas.org].
This is a real breakthrough in life science which claimed to be the biggest breakthrough in two decades. I, not for a second, question it. Customizeable bacterial cell is like programming a set of instruction to an entitiy which is not anymore composed from metal and electric current but instead A LIFE FORM that has a very unique intelligence. I can imagine the vast application that this breakthrough is able tap into: environmental, medical, energy and so on. The very decremental issues that we face in a daily basis by which our economy and many countries' foreign policy have been driven.
For example. the researches are planning to design algae that can capture carbon dioxide and make new hydrocarbons that could go into refineries. They are also working on ways to speed up the vaccine production. Making new chemicals or food ingredients and cleaning up water are other possible benefits, according to Venter. [source: http://www.aaas.org/]
Actually I am more interested to see what will happen hundreed of thousands of year after the first synthesized bacteria created. Perhaps they will evolve and create a civilisation like human beings after all of our race extinct. Perhaps they will go to another planet and start a new cilization and colony. How will this bacteria look like hundreed thousand or million of years from now? and does it make Venter and his colleagues GOD since they start this civilization? If that this case would it be possible that we are all product of synthesized simple living form after years of evolution.
On the sides note, I cant believe the amount of residual wealth he is generating from this thing. Pharmeceutical industry, Medical, Energy, and so on. Gosh... he will be one wealthy man...
