Gordaen's Blog

I’ve always been intrigued by the similarities between a computer and a human brain. I also find it fascinating that DNA is essentially a program for saying how our cells should develop. However, more interesting than either of those is the possibility of completely creating a synthetic life form by essentially building DNA the way we want to. We’re quite a ways from making something as complex as a human, obviously, but there are plenty of uses for much simpler organisms. For instance, we could create a strain of bacteria that could fight off an illness-causing microorganism. We could create bacteria that generate an alternative fuel source.

Scientists have recently created the longest synthetic strand of DNA ever. It is nearly 600,000 base pairs. That sounds like a lot, but chromosome number 1 in humans is 220 million base pairs (see: Wikipedia’s DNA article). Regardless, it’s an amazing accomplishment. Perhaps we will be worrying about genetic issues sooner than we thought. Is it right to alter the DNA of a human? Is it right to create a complex living organism from scratch? Can we use synthetic organisms to create an organic processor? Is a team of scientists going to accidentally create a life-ending microorganism by accident, outdoing the biggest scientific “oops” currently held by NASA (i.e., the metric/standard mix up)?