On Synthetic Life

On Friday, December 10, 1999, the Philadelphia Inquirer had as its headline: “Recipe for Life? Scientists Close in on Essential Genes” (pp. AI, 16). It was based on an article “Global Transposon Mutagenesis and a Minimal Mycoplasma Genome” in Science (Dec. 10, 1999). The Inquirer piece specifically described the work and findings of an ethics committee known as the “Minimal Genome Project” which convened to address the proposed experiment described in the journal. The group was comprised of 20 people: ethicists, lawyers, philosophers, scientists, sociologists and theologians who were tasked to get out in front of science and discern the ethical implications, political correctness, environmental prohibitions and theological issues involved in creating new life forms. This experiment would be the next step down the road from reengineering organisms that already exist, such as genetically engineered crops, animals and vaccines. Before going any further however, it is important to note that these proposed “new life forms” or “synthetic life” would not be created “ex nihilo”, (only God can do that), but out of already existing material grown in laboratory conditions. The project was sponsored by J. Craig Venter of Celera Genomics in Rockville, MD. Venter, part scientist, part entrepreneur and part showman, is best known at the moment for his challenge to the National Institute of Health (NIH) for a quicker method of decoding of the human genome (Wade, N., May 19, 1999).