Artificial Life
Okay, no. That wasn’t real. That was a trailer for Splice.
Here is what is really going on:
These scientists took all the DNA out of a bacterial cell, so they had a blank life slate. Then they placed home-made DNA into the empty bacterial cell, and voila! Synthetic life. So, the whole thing isn’t artificial; it’s considered “artificial life” because the DNA they added was a sequence that the scientists made up. (Scientists love doing that.)
They didn’t even assemble all the DNA themselves (how lazy!). They just injected the cell with a bunch of pieces of DNA that they had assembled in the lab, and the pieces joined together to become the bacterium’s chromosome.
To put this in terms of the human body, it would be like removing someone’s brain and replacing it with a brain someone made in a lab. (Wow, I’m really failing at making this sound not scary.)
This would be weird if it wasn’t just an extra step in a process we’ve been doing for years. Bacteria love incorporating foreign DNA into their own DNA. They live for it. If two bacteria are next to each other, one can “pass” some DNA to the other. This is how bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics so fast. If one bacterium finds a gene that makes it immune to the drug, he/she/it just says “Hey, everyone. I’ve found the solution. Come and get it!” And he can distribute the gene to everyone. Cool for them. Not cool for us if they happen to be in our sinuses when they’re doing this.
But we humans can taken advantage of bacteria’s love for accepting random DNA. For example, it’s a great way to mass produce insulin for diabetics. We took the gene that has instructions for making insulin from a human cell and just gave it to some bacteria, who said, “Hey thanks, a new gene for me to use. I’ve been looking everywhere for one of these!”
So basically, bacteria are cooperative little friends that make great toys for scientists. I’ll admit that the scientists’ timing isn’t the best–creating “artificial life” so close to the release of Splice. But I suppose they didn’t consult imdb when they planned their research proposals. Obvious oversight. But if manipulating bacterial chromosomes is “playing God,” we’ve been God for decades. So I wouldn’t really worry about scientists creating angry cross-eyed superhuman mutants. That probably won’t happen for at least 5 more years. Sweet dreams!
