Public debate is needed about the future use of robots in society
Scientists have expressed concern about the use of autonomous decision-making robots, particularly for military use.
As they become more common, these machines could also have negative impacts on areas such as surveillance and elderly care, the roboticists warn.
The researchers were speaking ahead of a public debate at the Dana Centre, part of London's Science Museum.
Discussions about the future use of robots in society had been largely ill-informed so far, they argued.
Autonomous robots are able to make decisions without human intervention. At a simple level, these can include robot vacuum cleaners that "decide" for themselves when to move from room to room or to head back to a base station to recharge.
Military forces
Increasingly, autonomous machines are being used in military applications, too.
Samsung, for example, has developed a robotic sentry to guard the border between North and South Korea.
It is equipped with two cameras and a machine gun.
The development and eventual deployment of autonomous robots raised difficult questions, said Professor Alan Winfield of the University of West England.
"If an autonomous robot kills someone, whose fault is it?" said Professor Winfield.
"Right now, that's not an issue because the responsibility lies with the designer or operator of that robot; but as robots become more autonomous that line or responsibility becomes blurred."
Professor Noel Sharkey, of the University of Sheffield, said there could be more problems when robots moved from military to civil duties.
"Imagine the miners strike with robots armed with water cannons," he said. "These things are coming, definitely."
The researchers criticised recent research commissioned by the UK Office of Science and Innovation's Horizon Scanning Centre and released in December 2006.
Robot rights
The discussion paper was titled Utopian Dream or Rise of the Machines? It addressed issues such as the "rights" of robots, and examined developments in artificial intelligence and how this might impact on law and politics.
In particular, it predicted that robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans, including housing and even "robo-healthcare".
I can imagine a future where it is much cheaper to dump old people in big hospitals where machines care for them
Professor Noel Sharkey
"It's poorly informed, poorly supported by science and it is sensationalist," said Professor Owen Holland of the University of Essex.
"My concern is that we should have an informed debate and it should be an informed debate about the right issues."
The robo-rights scan was one of 246 papers, commissioned by the UK government, and compiled by a group of futures researchers, the Outsights-Ipsos Mori partnership and the US-based Institute for the Future (IFTF).
At the time, Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser, said: "The scans are aimed at stimulating debate and critical discussion to enhance government's short and long-term policy and strategy."
Other scans examined the future of space flight and developments in nanotechnology.
Raised questions
The Dana Centre event will pick up some of these issues.
"I think that concerns about robot rights are just a distraction," said Professor Winfield.
"The more pressing and serious problem is the extent to which society is prepared to trust autonomous robots and entrust others into the care of autonomous robots."
Caring for an ageing population also raised questions, he said.
Robots were already being used in countries like Japan to take simple measurements, such as heart rate, from elderly patients.
Professor Sharkey, who worked in geriatric nursing in his youth, said he could envisage a future when it was "much cheaper to dump a lot of old people" in a large hospital, where they could be cared for by machines.
Scenarios like these meant that proper debate about robotics was imperative, he added.
"In the same way as we have an informed nuclear debate, we need to tell the public about what is going on in robotics and ask them what they want."
Showing posts with label Future Health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Future Health. Show all posts
Monday, February 11, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Mum's diet shapes a child's future weight
By Ellen Connolly
January 27, 2008 01:00am
AUSTRALIAN scientists have made the world-first discovery that a pregnant woman's diet determines whether her baby grows into a fat adult or a skinny one.
The research suggests women who are overweight before they fall pregnant, and during it, may condemn their children to a life of overeating and obesity.
It reveals that a mother's diet during pregnancy affects the baby's brain circuits, determining appetite and energy expenditure in their offspring.
"This suggests that mothers should think twice about overindulging, or using the excuse that they're eating for two during pregnancy," University of NSW professor Margaret Morris said.
Pre-natal period programs a child's future appetite
Unlike previous studies, the groundbreaking work highlights the pre-natal period as a critical time for "programming of post-natal and adult appetite".
It found that even before a woman falls pregnant, she is potentially "programming" a child's future appetite.
"The major finding is the dramatic increase in body fat in offspring of overweight and obese mothers," Professor Morris said.
Mothers fed a high-fat diet had offspring that were heavier, with more body fat and altered appetite regulators in the brain, meaning they overate, she said.
The results are supported by a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition last year. It found that mothers who eat junk food during pregnancy may produce children who crave the same foods.
Professor Morris will present her findings at the Australian Neuroscience Society conference in Hobart this week.
She said the study was particularly relevant, given that about 30 per cent of mothers enter pregnancy in an overweight or obese condition.
Study mated overweight female rates with healthy males
The study was conducted using overweight female rats who mated with healthy males.
The females continued to be fed a high-fat Western diet during and after pregnancy, Professor Morris said.
"The mums were overeating for that whole period. We found the offspring were a third heavier than the rats fed a low-fat diet," she said.
Professor Morris said the brain pathways regulating appetite in rats were similar to those in humans, suggesting similar trends could be expected in people.
Sydney University nutritionist Dr Jenny O'Dea said it had become "quite well accepted" that a woman's diet during pregnancy impacted on the fetus.
"We also know that obesity during pregnancy more often than not causes gestational diabetes and high blood pressure," Dr O'Dea said.
Pregnant women should not 'eat for two'
She said that although nutritional needs were high during pregnancy, women should not be "eating for two".
Professor Morris studied mothers who were already overweight before they fell pregnant. The experiment results also found their offspring were showing signs of developing diabetes at a young age.
The findings are particularly relevant for overweight mothers, highlighting the importance of maintaining a normal weight before and during pregnancy.
Further research will examine how methods of intervention during breastfeeding can reverse bad nutritional habits and overeating.
Susie Burrell, a pediatric dietitian at The Children's Hospital at Westmead, said the study sent a powerful message to women planning to fall pregnant.
"They need to get their weight under control before conceiving, and those who are pregnant need to have minimum weight-gain during pregnancy," Ms Burrell said.
She said an increasing number of women were overweight before they fell pregnant, creating a "snowball effect".
"Their babies are more likely to have a high birth weight. This then leads to lifestyle diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease."
January 27, 2008 01:00am
AUSTRALIAN scientists have made the world-first discovery that a pregnant woman's diet determines whether her baby grows into a fat adult or a skinny one.
The research suggests women who are overweight before they fall pregnant, and during it, may condemn their children to a life of overeating and obesity.
It reveals that a mother's diet during pregnancy affects the baby's brain circuits, determining appetite and energy expenditure in their offspring.
"This suggests that mothers should think twice about overindulging, or using the excuse that they're eating for two during pregnancy," University of NSW professor Margaret Morris said.
Pre-natal period programs a child's future appetite
Unlike previous studies, the groundbreaking work highlights the pre-natal period as a critical time for "programming of post-natal and adult appetite".
It found that even before a woman falls pregnant, she is potentially "programming" a child's future appetite.
"The major finding is the dramatic increase in body fat in offspring of overweight and obese mothers," Professor Morris said.
Mothers fed a high-fat diet had offspring that were heavier, with more body fat and altered appetite regulators in the brain, meaning they overate, she said.
The results are supported by a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition last year. It found that mothers who eat junk food during pregnancy may produce children who crave the same foods.
Professor Morris will present her findings at the Australian Neuroscience Society conference in Hobart this week.
She said the study was particularly relevant, given that about 30 per cent of mothers enter pregnancy in an overweight or obese condition.
Study mated overweight female rates with healthy males
The study was conducted using overweight female rats who mated with healthy males.
The females continued to be fed a high-fat Western diet during and after pregnancy, Professor Morris said.
"The mums were overeating for that whole period. We found the offspring were a third heavier than the rats fed a low-fat diet," she said.
Professor Morris said the brain pathways regulating appetite in rats were similar to those in humans, suggesting similar trends could be expected in people.
Sydney University nutritionist Dr Jenny O'Dea said it had become "quite well accepted" that a woman's diet during pregnancy impacted on the fetus.
"We also know that obesity during pregnancy more often than not causes gestational diabetes and high blood pressure," Dr O'Dea said.
Pregnant women should not 'eat for two'
She said that although nutritional needs were high during pregnancy, women should not be "eating for two".
Professor Morris studied mothers who were already overweight before they fell pregnant. The experiment results also found their offspring were showing signs of developing diabetes at a young age.
The findings are particularly relevant for overweight mothers, highlighting the importance of maintaining a normal weight before and during pregnancy.
Further research will examine how methods of intervention during breastfeeding can reverse bad nutritional habits and overeating.
Susie Burrell, a pediatric dietitian at The Children's Hospital at Westmead, said the study sent a powerful message to women planning to fall pregnant.
"They need to get their weight under control before conceiving, and those who are pregnant need to have minimum weight-gain during pregnancy," Ms Burrell said.
She said an increasing number of women were overweight before they fell pregnant, creating a "snowball effect".
"Their babies are more likely to have a high birth weight. This then leads to lifestyle diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease."
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Is This The Beginnings Of Artificial Life?
In what many believe to be a case of creating artificial life, American scientists have found a way of replication a bacterium's 582,970 base pair genome which should allow for the creation of biofuel-manufacturing bacteria - in other words, building bacteria from scratch that might produce fuel for things like cars. It is the largest man-made DNA structure ever made. The previous largest one contained only 32,000 base pairs.
You can read about this in Science magazine.
Dr. Hamilton Smith, J Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, USA, and sixteen others built a bacterium's genome by chemically synthesizing DNA blocks. These blocks were then weaved together to create bigger DNA pieces - these can be formed to create a synthetic version of Mycoplasma genitalium. The scientists say these tailor-made micro-organisms can be designed to produce hydrogen, or tweaked to absorb surplus carbon dioxide in the air.
The team is not using the term artificial life; they prefer to call it synthetic life. Dr. Smith, in a BBC interview, said "We like to distinguish synthetic life from artificial life. It sets the stage for what we hope is going to be a new approach to engineering organisms."
The J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) says this is the second of three key steps towards the team's aim of creating a fully synthetic organism. They are currently trying to create a living bacterial cell, based completely on the synthetically made genome.
J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., President and Founder of JCVI, said "This extraordinary accomplishment is a technological marvel that was only made possible because of the unique and accomplished JCVI team. Ham Smith, Clyde Hutchison, Dan Gibson, Gwyn Benders, and the others on this team dedicated the last several years to designing and perfecting new methods and techniques that we believe will become widely used to advance the field of synthetic genomics."
The scientists explain that building blocks of DNA - adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T) are tremendously tricky chemicals to artificially synthesize into chromosomes. The longer the strands become the more brittle they are, making it very hard to work with them. Making the genome of the M. genitalium bacteria with over 580,000 base pairs was an enormous challenge.
Hamilton Smith said "When we started this work several years ago, we knew it was going to be difficult because we were treading into unknown territory. Through dedicated teamwork we have shown that building large genomes is now feasible and scalable so that important applications such as biofuels can be developed."
Ethics
Ever since the beginning of this project, the team has been concerned with the ethical issues related to their work. The creation of life by humankind is bound to trigger controversy.
About the J. Craig Venter Institute
The JCVI is a not-for-profit research institute dedicated to the advancement of the science of genomics; the understanding of its implications for society; and communication of those results to the scientific community, the public, and policymakers. Founded by J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., the JCVI is home to approximately 400 scientists and staff with expertise in human and evolutionary biology, genetics, bioinformatics/informatics, information technology, high-throughput DNA sequencing, genomic and environmental policy research, and public education in science and science policy. The legacy organizations of the JCVI are: The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), The Center for the Advancement of Genomics (TCAG), the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives (IBEA), the Joint Technology Center (JTC), and the J. Craig Venter Science Foundation. The JCVI is a 501 (c)(3) organization. For additional information, please visit http://www.JCVI.org.
You can read about this in Science magazine.
Dr. Hamilton Smith, J Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, USA, and sixteen others built a bacterium's genome by chemically synthesizing DNA blocks. These blocks were then weaved together to create bigger DNA pieces - these can be formed to create a synthetic version of Mycoplasma genitalium. The scientists say these tailor-made micro-organisms can be designed to produce hydrogen, or tweaked to absorb surplus carbon dioxide in the air.
The team is not using the term artificial life; they prefer to call it synthetic life. Dr. Smith, in a BBC interview, said "We like to distinguish synthetic life from artificial life. It sets the stage for what we hope is going to be a new approach to engineering organisms."
The J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) says this is the second of three key steps towards the team's aim of creating a fully synthetic organism. They are currently trying to create a living bacterial cell, based completely on the synthetically made genome.
J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., President and Founder of JCVI, said "This extraordinary accomplishment is a technological marvel that was only made possible because of the unique and accomplished JCVI team. Ham Smith, Clyde Hutchison, Dan Gibson, Gwyn Benders, and the others on this team dedicated the last several years to designing and perfecting new methods and techniques that we believe will become widely used to advance the field of synthetic genomics."
The scientists explain that building blocks of DNA - adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T) are tremendously tricky chemicals to artificially synthesize into chromosomes. The longer the strands become the more brittle they are, making it very hard to work with them. Making the genome of the M. genitalium bacteria with over 580,000 base pairs was an enormous challenge.
Hamilton Smith said "When we started this work several years ago, we knew it was going to be difficult because we were treading into unknown territory. Through dedicated teamwork we have shown that building large genomes is now feasible and scalable so that important applications such as biofuels can be developed."
Ethics
Ever since the beginning of this project, the team has been concerned with the ethical issues related to their work. The creation of life by humankind is bound to trigger controversy.
About the J. Craig Venter Institute
The JCVI is a not-for-profit research institute dedicated to the advancement of the science of genomics; the understanding of its implications for society; and communication of those results to the scientific community, the public, and policymakers. Founded by J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., the JCVI is home to approximately 400 scientists and staff with expertise in human and evolutionary biology, genetics, bioinformatics/informatics, information technology, high-throughput DNA sequencing, genomic and environmental policy research, and public education in science and science policy. The legacy organizations of the JCVI are: The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), The Center for the Advancement of Genomics (TCAG), the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives (IBEA), the Joint Technology Center (JTC), and the J. Craig Venter Science Foundation. The JCVI is a 501 (c)(3) organization. For additional information, please visit http://www.JCVI.org.
Bionic lenses
SUPERHUMAN eyesight has come a step closer to reality, after engineers successfully built the first contact lenses equipped with microscopic built-in electronics.
The prototype lenses, revealed by Washington University scientists, should enable wearers to see visual displays projected into the world in front of them.
Professor Babak Parviz, one of the developers, says the displays could have many uses: drivers or pilots could see their vehicles’ speed projected on the windshield. Video-game companies could use the contact lenses to immerse players in a virtual world without restricting their range of motion.
And for communications, people on the go could surf the internet on a midair virtual display screen that only they would be able to see.
A fully functioning lens is some years off, cautions Parviz, but already laboratory tests have shown that the electric lenses can be worn without serious irritation, he told the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
The prototype lenses, revealed by Washington University scientists, should enable wearers to see visual displays projected into the world in front of them.
Professor Babak Parviz, one of the developers, says the displays could have many uses: drivers or pilots could see their vehicles’ speed projected on the windshield. Video-game companies could use the contact lenses to immerse players in a virtual world without restricting their range of motion.
And for communications, people on the go could surf the internet on a midair virtual display screen that only they would be able to see.
A fully functioning lens is some years off, cautions Parviz, but already laboratory tests have shown that the electric lenses can be worn without serious irritation, he told the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Synthetic life
By Helen Briggs
Science reporter, BBC News
The bacterium has one of the smallest known genomes
An important step has been taken in the quest to create a synthetic lifeform.
A US team reports in Science magazine how it replicated the entire DNA code from a common bacterium in the laboratory.
The group hopes eventually to use engineered genomes to make organisms that can produce clean fuels and take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Publication of the research gives others the chance to scrutinise it. Some have ethical concerns.
It sets the stage for what we hope is going to be a new approach to engineering organisms
Dr Hamilton Smith, Nobel Prize winner
Creating life in the lab
These critics have been calling for several years now for a debate on the risks of creating "artificial life" in a test tube.
But Dr Hamilton Smith, who was part of the Science study, said the team regarded its lab-made genome - a laboratory copy of the DNA used by the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium - as a step towards synthetic, rather than artificial, life.
He told BBC News: "We like to distinguish synthetic life from artificial life.
"With synthetic life, we're re-designing the cell chromosomes; we're not creating a whole new artificial life system."
Gene cassettes
The team of 17 scientists constructed the bacterial genome by chemically synthesising small blocks of DNA.
Ever-bigger chunks of DNA are being assembled
These were grown up in a bacterium, and knitted together into bigger pieces, so-called "cassettes" of genes.
The researchers ended up with several large chunks of DNA that were joined to make the circular genome of a synthetic version of Mycoplasma genitalium.
They have named it Mycoplasma JCVI-1.0, after their research centre, the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, MD, US.
Dr Craig Venter, who was involved in the race to decode the human genome, believes tailor-made micro-organisms can become efficient producers of non-polluting fuels such as hydrogen. Other synthetic bacteria could be made to take up greenhouse gases, he believes.
"It sets the stage for what we hope is going to be a new approach to engineering organisms," said co-researcher Dr Smith.
Operating systems
To achieve this goal, the researchers must overcome a crucial, and tricky, obstacle.
They must transplant the synthetic genome into another cell so that it can use the existing machinery to "boot up" and start growing and reproducing.
STEPS TO SYNTHETIC LIFE
2002: synthetic virus created - a lab version of polio
2007: a genome from one cell is placed in another
2008: publication of synthetic genome study
"It's installing the software - basically we have to boot up the genome, get it operating," said Dr Smith, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978.
"We're simply re-writing the operating software for cells - we're not designing a genome from the bottom up - you can't drop a genome into a test tube and expect it to come to life," he added.
This is the stage which raises the most concern among critics, and where a new lifeform could be said to be truly created. How precisely will it behave? What will its impact be on other organisms and the environment? Some say it is a step too far, but others argue that the new field of synthetic biology is an important science.
Even bigger
The UK's Royal Society is seeking views from the public on the issue.
Adviser on synthetic biology, Dr Jason Chin, said the increasing ability to design and construct DNA sequences would, in principle, allow the construction of organisms for particular purposes, such as biofuels production.
He added: "Understanding how you construct organisms artificially is an important first step. But scientists still need to understand what effect altering the DNA sequence of an organism - such as bacteria - will have upon their behaviour."
Dr Drew Endy of the Department of Biological Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, said that re-constructing a natural bacterial genome from scratch was a great technical feat.
He said genomes 10 times larger than Mycoplasma JCVI-1.0 had already been assembled from existing DNA fragments by a Japanese group.
Dr Endy added: "Given the work already done in Japan, building genomes almost 10 million base-pairs long - I would be surprised if by 2012 it were not technically possible to routinely design and construct the genomes of any bacteria or single celled eukaryote, which also means that it will be possible to construct some mammalian chromosomes."
Dr Simon Woods, a bio-ethicist at the Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre at the University of Newcastle, UK, said scientists were acting in a regulatory vacuum.
"On the one hand it's an amazing piece of science but the real concern is that it's another example of science delving into matters that have potentially dangerous consequences," he said.
"It's not necessarily going to stay in the hands of well-intentioned scientists."
Science reporter, BBC News
The bacterium has one of the smallest known genomes
An important step has been taken in the quest to create a synthetic lifeform.
A US team reports in Science magazine how it replicated the entire DNA code from a common bacterium in the laboratory.
The group hopes eventually to use engineered genomes to make organisms that can produce clean fuels and take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Publication of the research gives others the chance to scrutinise it. Some have ethical concerns.
It sets the stage for what we hope is going to be a new approach to engineering organisms
Dr Hamilton Smith, Nobel Prize winner
Creating life in the lab
These critics have been calling for several years now for a debate on the risks of creating "artificial life" in a test tube.
But Dr Hamilton Smith, who was part of the Science study, said the team regarded its lab-made genome - a laboratory copy of the DNA used by the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium - as a step towards synthetic, rather than artificial, life.
He told BBC News: "We like to distinguish synthetic life from artificial life.
"With synthetic life, we're re-designing the cell chromosomes; we're not creating a whole new artificial life system."
Gene cassettes
The team of 17 scientists constructed the bacterial genome by chemically synthesising small blocks of DNA.
Ever-bigger chunks of DNA are being assembled
These were grown up in a bacterium, and knitted together into bigger pieces, so-called "cassettes" of genes.
The researchers ended up with several large chunks of DNA that were joined to make the circular genome of a synthetic version of Mycoplasma genitalium.
They have named it Mycoplasma JCVI-1.0, after their research centre, the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, MD, US.
Dr Craig Venter, who was involved in the race to decode the human genome, believes tailor-made micro-organisms can become efficient producers of non-polluting fuels such as hydrogen. Other synthetic bacteria could be made to take up greenhouse gases, he believes.
"It sets the stage for what we hope is going to be a new approach to engineering organisms," said co-researcher Dr Smith.
Operating systems
To achieve this goal, the researchers must overcome a crucial, and tricky, obstacle.
They must transplant the synthetic genome into another cell so that it can use the existing machinery to "boot up" and start growing and reproducing.
STEPS TO SYNTHETIC LIFE
2002: synthetic virus created - a lab version of polio
2007: a genome from one cell is placed in another
2008: publication of synthetic genome study
"It's installing the software - basically we have to boot up the genome, get it operating," said Dr Smith, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978.
"We're simply re-writing the operating software for cells - we're not designing a genome from the bottom up - you can't drop a genome into a test tube and expect it to come to life," he added.
This is the stage which raises the most concern among critics, and where a new lifeform could be said to be truly created. How precisely will it behave? What will its impact be on other organisms and the environment? Some say it is a step too far, but others argue that the new field of synthetic biology is an important science.
Even bigger
The UK's Royal Society is seeking views from the public on the issue.
Adviser on synthetic biology, Dr Jason Chin, said the increasing ability to design and construct DNA sequences would, in principle, allow the construction of organisms for particular purposes, such as biofuels production.
He added: "Understanding how you construct organisms artificially is an important first step. But scientists still need to understand what effect altering the DNA sequence of an organism - such as bacteria - will have upon their behaviour."
Dr Drew Endy of the Department of Biological Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, said that re-constructing a natural bacterial genome from scratch was a great technical feat.
He said genomes 10 times larger than Mycoplasma JCVI-1.0 had already been assembled from existing DNA fragments by a Japanese group.
Dr Endy added: "Given the work already done in Japan, building genomes almost 10 million base-pairs long - I would be surprised if by 2012 it were not technically possible to routinely design and construct the genomes of any bacteria or single celled eukaryote, which also means that it will be possible to construct some mammalian chromosomes."
Dr Simon Woods, a bio-ethicist at the Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre at the University of Newcastle, UK, said scientists were acting in a regulatory vacuum.
"On the one hand it's an amazing piece of science but the real concern is that it's another example of science delving into matters that have potentially dangerous consequences," he said.
"It's not necessarily going to stay in the hands of well-intentioned scientists."
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Scientist unveils man-made genome, key to creating life from scratch
More Health and Science news
Gene pioneer Craig Venter has unveiled the world's first man-made genome, setting the stage for a profound milestone: the creation of life from scratch.
The feat, described online Thursday in the journal Science, was accomplished by making DNA fragments from lab chemicals and then assembling them inside a cell.
The synthetic genome contains all the instructions that an organism - in this case, a tiny bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium - needs to live and reproduce.
The ability to synthesize life, such as biofuels, could help solve one of mankind's biggest problems: a sustainable energy supply. But it could also be used to construct bioweapons, such as smallpox.
"The science can be used to do practical things - and it also can be used to do dangerous and nefarious things," said anthropologist Paul Rabinow of the University of California-Berkeley.
It is impossible to completely regulate such inventions, he said, urging the public to start discussing the science's ethical ramifications.
"What it might mean for the future is incredible," said David C. Magnus, director of Stanford University's Center for Biomedical Ethics, who in the late 1990s helped draft the first guidelines to govern such research. "The whole field has moved so far, so quickly.
"It shouldn't be discarded because of the pitfalls. We just need to make sure we stay on top of the pitfalls," Magnus said. "As a society, we're taking a gamble that we can put enough protections in
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place so that my the time it is widespread, the damage can be mitigated."
Scientists are now working on the next step at the Maryland and La Jolla labs of the J. Craig Venter Institute. They will strive to "boot up" the inserted genome and watch it give the cell marching orders.
Just as technicians can now assemble standardized, off-the-shelf electronic components to build computers, synthetic biologists foresee a day when engineers will assemble biological parts to create desired organisms.
In this experience, the team started with four jars of the basic chemical ingredients of DNA. The chemicals were strung together in the correct sequence, then assembled into small pieces called cassettes. Inside a yeast cell, the cassettes were linked to create a single large and looping chromosome.
This is the latest exploit for Venter, whose company Synthetic Genomics Inc. has already filed patents on synthetic bugs. He was the first person to sequence the genome of a living organism and the first to publish the genome of a specific human being - himself. He has applied for a patent on the synthetic bacterium.
"We're not shaking together chemicals and striking them with a lightening bolt," Venter said at a Thursday teleconference from Davos, Switzerland. "It is a new design phase of biology - constructing chromosomes of a specific nature for specific purposes."
California has also jumped into the field of so-called "synthetic biology" at the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, or SynBERC, a multi-institution research effort that includes University of California campuses at Santa Cruz, Berkeley and San Francisco, as well as private biotech companies and venture capital firms.
UC-Berkeley researcher Chris Anderson is building tumor-killing bacteria. In Emeryville, Amyris Biotechnologies adds genes to yeast or bacteria to make an anti-malaria drug and novel biofuels. The company LS9 of San Carlos is engineering bacteria that can make hydrocarbons for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Dozens of so-called "gene foundries" have sprung up to sell synthetic strands of DNA and other products.
"It is the first step in a platform for an organic robot," said UC-Berkeley's Rabinow, a member of SynBERC.
Gene pioneer Craig Venter has unveiled the world's first man-made genome, setting the stage for a profound milestone: the creation of life from scratch.
The feat, described online Thursday in the journal Science, was accomplished by making DNA fragments from lab chemicals and then assembling them inside a cell.
The synthetic genome contains all the instructions that an organism - in this case, a tiny bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium - needs to live and reproduce.
The ability to synthesize life, such as biofuels, could help solve one of mankind's biggest problems: a sustainable energy supply. But it could also be used to construct bioweapons, such as smallpox.
"The science can be used to do practical things - and it also can be used to do dangerous and nefarious things," said anthropologist Paul Rabinow of the University of California-Berkeley.
It is impossible to completely regulate such inventions, he said, urging the public to start discussing the science's ethical ramifications.
"What it might mean for the future is incredible," said David C. Magnus, director of Stanford University's Center for Biomedical Ethics, who in the late 1990s helped draft the first guidelines to govern such research. "The whole field has moved so far, so quickly.
"It shouldn't be discarded because of the pitfalls. We just need to make sure we stay on top of the pitfalls," Magnus said. "As a society, we're taking a gamble that we can put enough protections in
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place so that my the time it is widespread, the damage can be mitigated."
Scientists are now working on the next step at the Maryland and La Jolla labs of the J. Craig Venter Institute. They will strive to "boot up" the inserted genome and watch it give the cell marching orders.
Just as technicians can now assemble standardized, off-the-shelf electronic components to build computers, synthetic biologists foresee a day when engineers will assemble biological parts to create desired organisms.
In this experience, the team started with four jars of the basic chemical ingredients of DNA. The chemicals were strung together in the correct sequence, then assembled into small pieces called cassettes. Inside a yeast cell, the cassettes were linked to create a single large and looping chromosome.
This is the latest exploit for Venter, whose company Synthetic Genomics Inc. has already filed patents on synthetic bugs. He was the first person to sequence the genome of a living organism and the first to publish the genome of a specific human being - himself. He has applied for a patent on the synthetic bacterium.
"We're not shaking together chemicals and striking them with a lightening bolt," Venter said at a Thursday teleconference from Davos, Switzerland. "It is a new design phase of biology - constructing chromosomes of a specific nature for specific purposes."
California has also jumped into the field of so-called "synthetic biology" at the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, or SynBERC, a multi-institution research effort that includes University of California campuses at Santa Cruz, Berkeley and San Francisco, as well as private biotech companies and venture capital firms.
UC-Berkeley researcher Chris Anderson is building tumor-killing bacteria. In Emeryville, Amyris Biotechnologies adds genes to yeast or bacteria to make an anti-malaria drug and novel biofuels. The company LS9 of San Carlos is engineering bacteria that can make hydrocarbons for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Dozens of so-called "gene foundries" have sprung up to sell synthetic strands of DNA and other products.
"It is the first step in a platform for an organic robot," said UC-Berkeley's Rabinow, a member of SynBERC.
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