The Brave New World of Artificial Life

Posted on December 17, 2007

While most of the country is being blanketed with media coverage of Oprah-Obama tour, Huckabee's latest gaffe and whether the campaign trail is aging Hillary, actual news is being ignored. Like the fact that scientists have successfully created DNA which will lead to the creation of new, artificial life forms. This new technology is an extension of process that started by tweaking DNA to make crops more resistant to disease or pests. But scientists have gone way beyond that. They have created self-replicating life forms that will serve as biofuel, eat pollution and do many other things.

There is no regulation of this industry so far. But what is more disturbing is the fact that companies such as DuPont have filed hundreds of broadly worded patent applications which would give the company --and a few others -- control of the building blocks of artificial life. That is a very serious issue that needs to be addressed.

Yet another application is in medicine, where synthetic DNA is allowing bacteria and yeast to produce the malaria drug artemisinin far more efficiently than it is made in plants, its natural source. Bugs such as these will seem quaint, scientists say, once fully synthetic organisms are brought on line to work 24/7 on a range of tasks, from industrial production to chemical cleanups. But the prospect of a flourishing synbio economy has many wondering who will own the valuable rights to that life.
In the past year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been flooded with aggressive synthetic-biology claims. Some of Venter's applications, in particular, "are breathtaking in their scope," said Knight. And with Venter's company openly hoping to develop "an operating system for biologically-based software," some fear it is seeking synthetic hegemony. "We've asked our patent lawyers to be reasonable and not to be overreaching," Venter said. But competitors such as DuPont, he said, "have just blanketed the field with patent applications."
Safety concerns also loom large. Already a few scientists have made viruses from scratch. The pending ability to make bacteria -- which, unlike viruses, can live and reproduce in the environment outside of a living body -- raises new concerns about contamination, contagion and the potential for mischief. "Ultimately synthetic biology means cheaper and widely accessible tools to build bioweapons, virulent pathogens and artificial organisms that could pose grave threats to people and the planet," concluded a recent report by the Ottawa-based ETC Group, one of dozens of advocacy groups that want a ban on releasing synthetic organisms pending wider societal debate and regulation. "The danger is not just bio-terror but bio-error," the report says. Many scientists say the threat has been overblown. Venter notes that his synthetic genomes are spiked with special genes that make the microbes dependent on a rare nutrient not available in nature. And Pierce, of DuPont, says the company's bugs are too spoiled to survive outdoors.
"They are designed to grow in a cosseted environment with very high food levels," Pierce said. "You throw this guy out on the ground, he just can't compete. He's toast." "We've heard that before," said Jim Thomas, ETC Group's program manager, noting that genes engineered into crops have often found their way into other plants despite assurances to the contrary. "The fact is, you can build viruses, and soon bacteria, from downloaded instructions on the Internet," Thomas said. "Where's the governance and oversight?"

There is no governance or oversight whatsoever of this process which is based on artificial DNA. And the concept that a few large companies could own the rights to create all artificial life is absolutely appalling. But by all means, let's put on our blindfolds and have our politicians solely debate issues that are firmly rooted in the past, not the future.