And Man Made Life

TO CREATE life is the prerogative of gods. Deep in the human psyche, whatever the rational pleadings of physics and chemistry, there exists a sense that biology is different, is more than just the sum of atoms moving about and reacting with one another, is somehow infused with a divine spark, a vital essence. It may come as a shock, then, that mere mortals have now made artificial life.

Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith, the two American biologists who unravelled the first DNA sequence of a living organism (a bacterium) in 1995, have made a bacterium that has an artificial genome—creating a living creature with no ancestor (see article). Pedants may quibble that only the DNA of the new beast was actually manufactured in a laboratory; the researchers had to use the shell of an existing bug to get that DNA to do its stuff. Nevertheless, a Rubicon has been crossed. It is now possible to conceive of a world in which new bacteria (and eventually, new animals and plants) are designed on a computer and then grown to order.

--"And man made life: Artificial life, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, has arrived," The Economist, Leaders section (5.20.10)

The genie is out of the bottle--for good and ill. We knew it would likely happen, sooner or later. The path was being revealed: the work of the cloning scientists; the mapping and research of the genome; the growing knowledge of the details of how our genes dictate our form and function--and our deep-seated need to know more, author more, and control more. We cannot be surprised that we are brought to this place.

But if there is reason for hope, there is reason for concern. We will have to be at our very best. In whatever good, protecting and guiding way we may entertain a notion of relationship with Deity or Truth, in whatever way we may hold to a sense of Purpose or Providence, may that power and wisdom, that creative process, purpose or providence be with us and guide us. For we have so often proven that we humans acting individually or collectively, privately or in the process of governing, are unreliable stewards of those things that offer the potential for the greatest good and the greatest harm. The article elaborates:

That ability would prove mankind's mastery over nature in a way more profound than even the detonation of the first atomic bomb. The bomb, however justified in the context of the second world war, was purely destructive. Biology is about nurturing and growth. Synthetic biology, as the technology that this and myriad less eye-catching advances are ushering in has been dubbed, promises much. In the short term it promises better drugs, less thirsty crops, greener fuels and even a rejuvenated chemical industry. In the longer term who knows what marvels could be designed and grown?

On the face of it, then, artificial life looks like a wonderful thing. Yet that is not how many will view the announcement. For them, a better word than "creation" is "tampering". Have scientists got too big for their boots? Will their hubris bring Nemesis in due course? What horrors will come creeping out of the flask on the laboratory bench? ...

The other [advancing] development is faster and cheaper DNA synthesis. This has lagged a few years behind DNA analysis, but seems to be heading in the same direction. That means it will soon be possible for almost anybody to make DNA to order, and dabble in synthetic biology.

That is good, up to a point. Innovation works best when it is a game that anyone can play. The more ideas there are, the better the chance some will prosper. Unfortunately and inevitably, some of those ideas will be malicious. And the problem with malicious biological inventions—unlike, say, guns and explosives—is that once released, they can breed by themselves. What if a home-brew synthetic-biology club were accidentally to launch a real virus or bacterium? What if a terrorist were to do the same deliberately?

The risk of accidentally creating something bad is probably low. Most bacteria opt for an easy life breaking down organic material that is already dead. It doesn't fight back. Living hosts do. Creating something bad deliberately, whether the creator is a teenage hacker, a terrorist or a rogue state, is a different matter. No one now knows how easy it would be to turbo-charge an existing human pathogen, or take one that infects another type of animal and assist its passage over the species barrier. We will soon find out, though.

But how do we protect the world from ourselves, from the harm, if not the horror, we could unleash? Rather than a poor job of paraphrasing, I offer the thoughtful considerations of The Economist:

It is hard to know how to address this threat. The reflex, to restrict and ban, has worked (albeit far from perfectly) for more traditional sorts of biological weapons. Those, though, have been in the hands of states. The ubiquity of computer viruses shows what can happen when technology gets distributed.

Thoughtful observers of synthetic biology favour a different approach: openness. This avoids shutting out the good in a belated attempt to prevent the bad. Knowledge cannot be unlearned, so the best way to oppose the villains is to have lots of heroes on your side. Then, when a problem arises, an answer can be found quickly. If pathogens can be designed by laptop, vaccines can be, too. And, just as "open source" software lets white-hat computer nerds work against the black-hats, so open-source biology would encourage white-hat geneticists.

Regulation—and, especially, vigilance—will still be needed. Keeping an eye out for novel diseases is sensible even when such diseases are natural. Monitoring needs to be redoubled and co-ordinated. Then, whether natural or artificial, the full weight of synthetic biology can be brought to bear on the problem. Encourage the good to outwit the bad and, with luck, you keep Nemesis at bay.

The computer hackers and computer virus analogies are useful, and perhaps our most reasonable guideposts. And the approach offered reflects wisdom, or at least fair understandings of our experience. It is likely the better of unnerving alternatives.

A longer article, a fascinating treatment of the actual biological technology employed and other approaches in progress, is provided in a Briefing article in the same issue of The Economist: "Genesis Redux: A new form of life has been created in a laboratory, and the era of synthetic biology is dawning." It is definitely worth the read.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16163154
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16163006