Craig Venter, the high-profile genetic researcher and cleantech
entrepreneur, is possibly weeks away from announcing that he and
a group of scientists have created the first new artificial life
form on Earth, according to the Guardian. As in, today I made:
a) brownies, b) a blog post, or c) a new artificial life form.
Venter’s process involves building a synthetic chromosome and
inserting it into a living bacterial cell, where it is expected
to take over the cell and become a new life form. Um, the idea
is actually so mind-boggling that we’re not fully prepared to
lead you into an ethical and scientific discussion of it. But we
did talk with Dr. Ari Patrinos, president of Venter’s bioenergy
startup Synthetic Genomics, about why synthetic life forms could
help fight climate change and aid in uncovering new energy
sources. Speaking from his lunch break at the J. Craig Venter
Institute’s annual meeting Monday afternoon, Patrinos explained
that a designer organism could be developed to only perform
certain tasks,