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Creating an actual cell from scratch would be very difficult but not particularly compelling. The synthetic genome gets "transplanted" into a host cell (in thi
by crispyambulance 11y ago
Creating an actual cell from scratch would be very difficult but not particularly compelling.
The synthetic genome gets "transplanted" into a host cell (in this case the M.capricolum baterium), from that point on, it "IS" the new organism and divides as such.
And anyway, there's a tremendous amount of stuff to study with "the platform" of a transplanted genome. Venter should probably get the Nobel prize twice-- once for shotgun sequencing and at least once (if not twice) for synthetic biology. These are huge advancements.
- dekhn 11y agoI would say it's the new organism only after nearly all the old host cell components have decayed away. In the meantime, it's a hybrid. Then the new genome starts transcribing and translating new proteins to replace the host cell's components, and due to aging/entropy/repair eventually all the old components will be gone. Venter didn't invent shotgun but he did popularize it. He was a top-notch biologist even before he switched to genomics, though, and that work was good enough that I think had he kept to it, he may very well have won the prize eventually. Likely, Venter will not win the prize for several reasons. He's political- too many people hate him. Most of his work is viewed as "technical" by the scientific community. The words "obvious" and "boring" seem to be the things that I hear most levied against his efforts.