Artificial life born in lab

If you thought maverick American biologist Craig Venter had settled down to a bald, bearded and buck naked existence on his luxury yacht Sorcerer II, emerging once a while to deliver talks on the future of science, you thought wrong. Venter, who once cocked a snook at the US government in a race to sequence the human genome, is back where he belongs — on newspaper headlines.

On Saturday, he told the British media that he has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals. A few days from now, perhaps as early as Monday, he is expected to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.

To get a sense of what this really means, a quick primer on genetics is called for. Every cell in the human body contains a copy of the genome. Think of the genome as a book — the blueprint — that contains details of what each individual ought to be like.

Now, each genome contains 23 chromosomes — if the genome were a book, then think of chromosomes as the chapters in it. And each of these chapters tell several thousand stories, called genes. For instance, the colour of an individual’s skin, eyes and hair, his height, whether he is left or right handed, his IQ, and everything else that matters.

When Venter sequenced the human genome in 2001, it was the equivalent of figuring out what language the book was written in and how to read it.
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Do you think something built in a lab, even a chromosome, can be considered "life?"

What are ethical considerations of building an artificial "life" with chemicals in a lab?

Some scientists feel that creating life in a fashion other than reproduction, like cloning, will benefit humanity by advancing the practice of medicine. Do you agree?

REMEMBER TO BE RESPECTFUL
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