Ever since Dr Craig Venter announced in a paper in Science about how his team had managed to insert a synthetic DNA into a bacteria and the bacteria then had multiplied, the world has gone gaga over the dawn of synthetic life. The reaction from fellow scientists, however, has been more subdued. In a story I did for DNA Sunday I spoke to Dr Satyajit Rath, scientist at the National Institute of Immunology, Delhi and Dr Jayesh Bellare, professor of chemical engineering in IIT Bombay to find out the scientific, commercial and ethical implications of Synthia. Excerpts…
What are the implications of the Venter experiment?
Rath: I don’t think this is a novel achievement. Ever since we began chemically synthesising DNA molecules — which was decades ago — the prediction always was that if we could chemically synthesise the entire strand of bacterial DNA and insert it into a bacterial cell, it would function as a bacterial DNA. Then it’s barely a matter of rigorous synthesis and enough money to do the experiment. To synthesise short DNA costs less. It costs much more to synthesise a megabase of DNA (which the Venter group has done).
But where is the synthetic life? All that the Venter experiment did was to insert a new DNA into a functional cell. The cell itself was already there — its organisation, its membrane, its cytoplasm. In a computer you can pull out a hard drive, put in a new one, and reboot and then say ‘It works!’ But what does it tell you about the working of the computer? The implications (of the Venter experiment) are commercial not scientific.
Bellare: The bacterium Venter and his team created was not fully synthetic. You needed a pre-existing life form in which the DNA was inserted. That cell, as of now, already comes from nature. Secondly, the DNA that was put was not a designer DNA. It was a pre-existing DNA — a copy of known functioning DNA of another organism.
What would be a significant breakthrough in this field?
Rath: The real challenge is to assemble the components of a cell. We will have much greater understanding and then control on cellular processes. That will have a great deal of implication on our fundamental understanding of biology and its consequences on health, bio-technology and agri-bio-technology.
Even if the Venter group had recoded the code it would have been dramatic. It would have told us something fundamental in how the code is perceived by biological systems which read the code.
Bellare: If truly synthetic life is created, all dependence on chemical factories will be gone. We could have cells producing spider webs which are stronger than steel. You could even have cells which produce drugs.
What are the commercial implications of Venter’s experiment?
Rath: Recently, the usage of breast cancer genes for diagnostics was thrown out of the window by a US judge saying that the patents invalid, since genes are naturally known entities which are discovered rather than invented. However, if the patenting had involved a synthetic approach, then the judge may have taken a different view. That’s in part why the Venter lab in its Science paper uses an interesting term — watermark. That watermark [on the synthesised DNA] is akin to a stamp of ownership, a copyright.
Currently life forms cannot be patented because they are natural. But maybe regulatory authorities will take a different view if somebody said that they have synthesised (the organism). Ordinarily it is not simple to patent a bacterium you have discovered for bio-fuel generation or oil spillage clearance. But somebody could synthesise the entire genome of the bacterium, put a watermark into it and then apply for a patent. The modification itself could be marginal.
Ethicists have a problem with molecular biologists reducing the complexities of life to chemicals and structures. Do you think there should therefore be some restrictions on scientific study?
Rath: I don’t even understand this. What does it mean? That molecular biologists reduce the complexities of life to chemical structures? Most of us reduce the complexities of life to getting up in the morning, having breakfast, doing some job that pays us some money, coming home in the night, having dinner, and going to bed. That is a pretty reductionist way of looking at the complexities of life.
I have always been unable to understand how molecular biologists reduce the complexities of life to molecules and structures as though molecular biologists are some peculiar sub specie of humans that are doing this reduction when nobody else is.
For example, aren’t ethicists being reductionists? They make idea categories — like life and death. But what about a virus? Do they think a virus is alive or dead? I do know viruses sit on the boundaries we make. But all boundaries are reductionist. Then I begin to worry that ethicists have no problem with their own reduction, but they seem to have a problem with everyone else’s reduction. That seems kind of unethical to me.
Clerics say scientists should not play God. But is this a new thing? Hasn’t man already been playing God in agriculture, animal husbandry etc.?
Rath: I thought for 3,000 years clerics have been arguing what God is. If we don’t know what god is how can we define certain acts as playing god and certain acts as not playing god. There is a logical fallacy here. We have an argument as to how God is the one who gives life and takes life away. But we take life all the time. Every time you breathe you take in a few bacteria and kill them. When you eat something or drink water you are taking in a fair number of bacteria and putting them in an acid bath in your stomach. So that’s not playing God? Society demands we hang people by the neck until they die. So that’s not playing god? But making GM crop or GM bacterium is playing god? How are these definitions being made?