Maybe we are one step closer to break the ultimate tabu. Maybe some researchers actually feel the mystery of life is about to be unveiled.
At least according to Dr. Craig Venter, an independent and controversial scientist who announced some sort of artificial life will be ready to be presented to the world in four months time.
By artificial life he means a man-made organism. Verner has been working on the project for about ten years now and feels he is about to reach the finish line. The project is very complex and consists in transplanting DNA into bacteria.
Last January Dr. Verner’s team built a whole bacterium’s genome form scratch. This man-made DNA was than transferred in a host cell. These experiments have been proven ineffective, at least until now. The reason for failure was that these synthetic genome was not able to develop the natural barriers against viruses. This process is called methylation.
This time the Verner team actually managed to remethylate the genome before placing it in the host cell. And the experiment was a success.
This experiment raised many eyebrows, of course. The main objection was that calling this process “artificial life” was taking it too far: researchers are rebooting a new DNA code into a host cell, not creating a living organism from scratch.
Any interpretation you want to give to Dr. Verner’s research, it is sure the latest proof that science and medical science are reaching new turning points faster and faster.
Are we looking into a scientific boundaries-less future?
