325
See also: Gregor Mendel 166–71 ■ Thomas Hunt Morgan 224–25 ■ Barbara McClintock 271 ■
James Watson and Francis Crick 276–83 ■ Michael Syvanen 318–19 ■ William French Anderson 322–23
FUNDAMENTAL BUILDING BLOCKS
DNA, which exists in the nucleus of
every cell. The long string of DNA’s
chemical building blocks was
identified as the genetic code that
controls the workings of the cell.
Creating life would mean creating
DNA—and getting the sequence of
building blocks, called nucleotides,
exactly right. Nucleotides each
have one of just four kinds of bases,
but combine in countless ways.
Making DNA
The sequence of nucleotides differs
in each organism, and is the result
of millions of years of evolution.
A random sequence would send a
nonsense chemical “message” that
could not maintain a living thing.
In order to create life, scientists had
to copy a sequence from a naturally
existing organism. By 1990, new
technology was available to work
this out through a host of complex
methods, and the international
Human Genome Project was
launched to sequence the entire
human genetic makeup, or genome.
The first organism—a
bacterium—was sequenced in 1995.
Three years later, frustrated by the
slow pace of the Human Genome
Project, Venter left to set up the
private company Celera Genomics
to sequence the human genome
more quickly and to release the data
into the public domain. In 2007, his
team announced that it had made
an artificial chromosome—a
complete string of DNA—based on
that of a bacterium of the genus
Mycoplasma. By 2010, his team had
inserted an artificial chromosome
into another bacterium whose
genetic material had been removed,
effectively creating a new life form.We are creating a new
value system for life.
Craig VenterComputer-generated life
The genome of even the simplest
living thing—such as Mycoplasma—
consists of sequences of hundreds
of thousands of nucleotides. These
nucleotides must be artificially
bonded together in a specific order,
but doing this for a whole genome
is a formidable task. The process is
automated with the help of
computer technology, on machines
that can now decode the genetic
blueprint of life, identify genetic
factors in disease, and even serve
to create new life forms. ■Craig Venter Born in Salt Lake City, Utah,
Craig Venter performed poorly at
school. Drafted into the Vietnam
War, he worked in a field hospital
and became drawn to biomedical
science. After studying at the
University of California, San Diego,
he joined the US National Institute
of Health in 1984. In the 1990s, he
helped develop technology that
could locate genes in the human
genetic makeup, becoming a
pioneer in the growing field of
genome research. He left the NIH
to set up the not-for-profit Institute
of Genomic Research in 1992. He
invented a way of sequencingwhole genomes, focusing first
on the bacterium Haemophilus
influenzae. Turning to the
human genome, he set up the
profit-making company Celera
and helped build advanced
sequencing machines. In 2006,
he founded the not-for-profit
J. Craig Venter Institute to
conduct research into the
creation of artificial life forms.Key works2001 The Sequence of the
Human Genome
2007 A Life DecodedMycoplasma are bacteria that lack a
cell wall. They are the smallest known
life forms, and were chosen by Venter
to be the first organisms to have their
chromosomes artificially sequenced.