Artificial life..playing God..

Craig Venter has been said to play God by many. I wonder though..sometimes I feel like all scientists play God or at least try to during there miserable careers. Yes, miserable I say, because regardless of the holier-than-thou attitude scientists do not have a clue about the word "FUN".

Anyway..enough digressing. My sister seems thrilled that someone "created life". Strangely enough that doesn't seem very thrilling to me at all. I was unhappy but honour bound to burst her bubble. Biologists have indeed come a really long way. We can make DNA, replicate it, transcribe the RNA and make proteins from it. Its just that I guess no lab tried to put it together before. I mean Venter made DNA and put it into an organism generating a completely new one. Which is exciting..considering you can make it produce whatever you like. But I guess making a stable integration system will take a long time. But it does make you wonder whether you can make organisms with literally no faults, no mutational hotspots,no introns, very efficient DNA polymerases and minimal proteins working efficiently. There are in fact a myriad of in vitro systems that have been perfected that would sound like myths. Probable targets for drugs in many previously unconquered diseases are already present and viable. Its just that clinical trials take so long. So imagine having an organism that can virtually make your drug for you. custom made tailored science. First hand. Fascinating.

Anyway, I recommend reading Dr. Venter's autobiography and the paper where he annotates the design and synthesis of artificial DNA, the longest ever made.