Craig Venter

Forbes.com is reporting that Craig Venter’s “synthetic” bacterial chromosome contains a “genetic typo.” Molecular biology has ascribed a letter to each amino acid. Venter and his team imported DNA sequences into the chromosome–called watermarks–that coded for amino acids which ‘spelled out’ sentences in the chromosome. But they got one sentence wrong. As the article reports: The synthetic DNA also included a quote from physicist Richard Feynman, “What I cannot build, I cannot understand.” That prompted a note from Caltech, the school where Feyman taught for decades. They sent Venter a photo of the blackboard on which Feynman composed the quote -and it showed that he actually wrote, “What I cannot create, I do not understand.” “We agreed what was on Read More ›

As Jonathan Wells recently observed, it’s being widely reported on internet news sites that biotech guru Craig Venter and his team have created “artificial life.” BBC News has a good description of what was really done: How a Synthetic Cell Was Created: 1. The scientists “decoded” the chromosome of an existing bacterial cell – using a computer to read each of the letters of genetic code. 2. They copied this code and chemically constructed a new synthetic chromosome, piecing together blocks of DNA. 3. The team inserted this chromosome into a bacterial cell which replicated itself. Synthetic bacteria might be used to make new fuels and drugs. (See “‘Artificial life’ breakthrough announced by scientists,” BBC News, May 20, 2010.) To Read More ›