Synthetic Biology - Brutes or Angels: Human Possibility in the Age of Biotechnology - page 264

thesis of genes and genomes, genetically modified bacteria that synthesize
compounds useful for making certain pharmaceuticals, and a redesigned
bacterium poised to receive new genetic instructions to convert it into a
miniature, commercial factory for exotic molecules. in 2004 a team of un-
dergraduate students at the iGem Jamboree constructed a photosensitive
bacterium. The students used a thin layer of the bacterial cells as a pho-
tographic film to produce a living, color photograph that spelled out the
words hello world, a favorite phrase of computer scientists. 16
in 2006 top-down synthetic biology struck a blow against malaria. Chemi-
cal engineer and synbiologist Jay Keasling and his team at Berkeley lab and
the University of California at Berkeley (ro et al. 2006) redesigned yeast
cells to produce artemisinic acid, precursor to a compound called artemisi-
nin, the most effective anti-malarial drug known. Currently, artemisinin
must be extracted from the sweet wormwood tree grown by small farm-
ers in east Asia, Africa, and south America. Keasling and his group, backed
financially by a $42.5-million grant from the Bill and melinda Gates foun-
dation, soon hope to have microbe factories churning out low-cost arte-
misinin with the goal of saving the lives of nearly one million children per
year. This sounds terrific, but we will see later that some unintended nega-
tive consequences accompany this project.
on the darker side, synbiologists have synthesized two deadly viruses.
in 2002, researchers created a fully functional artificial poliovirus from
mail-ordered DnA segments that they joined together in their laboratory.
When it was injected into mice, the human-made virus caused paralysis
and death. Then in 2005 other researchers at the Us Armed forces insti-
tute of Pathology in Washington, D.C., mount sinai school of medicine in
new york, and the Us Centers of Disease Control in Atlanta synthesized
the genome of the spanish flu virus that killed tens of millions of people
worldwide in 1918 and 1919. health officials thought this virus had dis-
appeared for good when its last victims died decades ago. But then frag-
ments of its genome turned up in frozen tissues of 1918 flu victims buried
in Alaskan permafrost. synbiologists used the genetic information in these
DnA fragments to reconstruct the deadly virus from scratch. The purpose