The Science Book

324

DESIGNING NEW

LIFE FORMS ON A

COMPUTER SCREEN

CRAIG VENTER (1946–)

I

n May 2010, an American

team of scientists led by

biologist Craig Venter created

the first wholly artificial life form.

The organism—a single-celled

bacterium—was assembled from

its raw chemical building blocks.

This was a testament to the

advance in our understanding of

the nature of life itself. The dream

of creating life is nothing new. In

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Biology

BEFORE

1866 Gregor Mendel shows

that the inherited traits in pea

plants follow certain patterns.

1902 American biologist and

physician Walter Sutton

suggests that chromosomes

are the carriers of heredity.

1910–11 Thomas Hunt

Morgan proves Sutton’s theory

in fruit fly experiments.

1953 Francis Crick and James

Watson reveal how DNA

carries genetic instructions.

1995 A bacterium’s genome

(complete set of genes) is the

first to be sequenced.

2000 The human genome is

first sequenced.

2007 Craig Venter synthesizes

an artificial chromosome.

AFTER

2010 Venter announces the

first synthesis of a life form.

1771, Luigi Galvani used electricity

to make a dissected frog’s leg

twitch, inspiring novelist Mary

Shelley to write Frankenstein. But

scientists gradually realized that

life depends less on a physical

“spark” and more on the chemical

processes taking place inside cells.

By the mid-1950s, the real secret

of life had been found in a molecule

called deoxyribonucleic acid, or

This sequence can

be deciphered.

One day we will be able to design new

life forms on a computer screen.

Living cells are

assembled and maintained

using instructions encoded

in DNA.

The DNA’s instructions

are held in a

precise sequence.

DNA can be created

artificially by bonding

its chemical building blocks

in a particular order.