By Maggie Fox
Washington - Researchers trying to make synthetic life in the lab have "booted up" a hollowed-out bacterium using a human-made genome in a major step toward making synthetic life.
They hope to use their stripped-down version of a bacterium to eventually engineer custom-made microbes.
"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 synthesiser, starting with information in a computer," said genome pioneer Craig Venter, who led the research.
"This is the first self-replicating species that we have had on the planet whose parent is a computer," he added.
Venter has said he would like to try to make bacteria to produce fuel, to design algae that can vacuum up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and to use in making better vaccines.
"This becomes a very powerful tool for trying to design what we want biology to do," Venter said at a news conference.
Reporting in the journal Science, Venter's team said they worked with a synthetic version of the DNA from a small bacterium called Mycoplasma mycoides transplanted into another germ called Mycoplasma capricolum, which had most of its insides removed.
After many false starts, the new microbe came to life and began replicating in the lab dish.
"This is an important step we think, both scientifically and philosophically. It's certainly changed my views of the definitions of life and how life works," Venter said in a statement.
It took years to first figure out how to make an artificial chromosome with assembled artificial genetic sequences. They then had to figure out how to transfer this into another bacterium.
At first, nothing happened. It turned out there was a single error in the more than one million "base-pairs" in the genetic sequence. "Our success was thwarted for many weeks," they wrote in their report.
"So accuracy is essential," Venter told the news conference.
The researchers do not claim to have created a completely synthetic life form.
Their eventual goal: "Can a complete genetic system be reproduced by chemical synthesis starting with only the digitised DNA sequence contained in a computer?" they asked in their paper.
Venter said the team consulted many different experts in ethics before they started. The institute's Dan Gibson said they also briefed the White House because of the security implications - the technique might be used to synthesize biological weapons, for instance.
Several other researchers said the study was a landmark.
"Venter is creaking open the most profound door in humanity's history, potentially peeking into its destiny," Julian Savulescu of Britain's University of Oxford, said in a statement.
"He is going towards the role of a god: creating artificial life that could never have existed naturally, creating life from the ground up using basic building blocks." - Reuters