As our technology advances, scientists are able to manage what was previously thought to be impossible. Scientists are now on the brink of making a new life form after being able to manage to augment the genetic code for the first time.
US scientist was able to manage and genetically engineer a common E-coli microbe to add molecules which are not existing naturally in the bacteria.
All the while in the long history of life on Earth, the genetic code of life has been 'programmed' with DNA that is mixed with 4 major letters:
· G (guanine)
· T (thymine)
· C (cytosine)
· A (adenine)
These letters are the molecules which match with the DNA helix that gives us our Unique code.
However, scientists have managed to stretch this code and they were able to add 2 new molecules which they have called X and Y, going to an entirely new life form.
The reason why the scientists did this is for Medicine.
The experts following this innovative project state that they have made a synthetic DNA in order to allow the bacterium to make a new form of proteins that could someday be used in other medical cure.
Dr. Romesberg, the lead scientist from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California said that the genome has to be stable for the scale of our lifetime. If the semi-synthetic organism is going to really be an organism, this should be able to strongly preserve that information. The Life on Earth in all its variety is encoded by only 2 pairs of DNA bases, those are A-T and C-G and what they have made is an organism that strongly holds those 2 plus a 3rd unnatural pair of bases.
He also said that this shows that other results to containing information are possible and could take us closer to an expanded-DNA biology that will have a lot of breathtaking functions, from new medicines to new kinds of nanotechnology.”
So what is the Next Step?
However, the process doesn't stop there. In reality, a research that was written in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said that the next process is to prove that artificial or unnatural DNA can be transferred into the RN molecules of the bacterium which could open up infinite possibilities for scientists like would grant them to control the bacterium's future actions. A little scary in that part, don't you think?
We could encrypt new proteins made from new unnatural amino acids which could give us the greater power than ever to alter protein therapeutics, diagnostics, and laboratory reagents to act according to what we want, as concluded by Dr. Romesburg.
“Other functions, such as nanomaterials, are also a possibility.”
Written by Kent McGrath, Lucis Philippines contributor.
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