Synthetic Biology and the Origins of Life

[Steve.J]

Wow - how about that for a blog title?

I just got done reading a really amazing essay in Technology Review (MIT's magazine covering innovation and emerging technologies).  It's my favorite magazine for monitoring cool new technology and research (OK - I'm a little biased).

The article was written by David Deamer, a Research Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at UC Santa Cruz.  His essay chronicles the research going into the understanding of how life began on Earth and describes some of the new technologies being used to essentially synthesize life (or basic life processes at this point) at the molecular level.  They are able to get mixtures of lipids to self assemble into membranes and even spherical vesicles that can contain DNA like molecules.  Other researchers are getting RNA in bulk to self-select in a kind of Darwinian process, demonstrating that given the right conditions (and conditions that were certainly feasible during Earth's early history), normally occurring selective processes could have led to the creation of molecules that were supportive of continued evolution. All of these discoveries are leading to attempts to combine these various elements into the beginnings of a man-made cell, cobbled together from bits and pieces of stuff that could have been naturally occurring during the prebiotic era on Earth.  This all kind of conjours images of early 20th-century horror movies, but instead of a crudely stitched-together human on the table, there is a small vial of microscopic protocells that are being coaxed into "life".

All kidding aside- this is fascinating stuff.  And if nothing else, the article is a really good primer on the basic components and processes that are needed to satisfy our definition of life.

The article is in the current issue (May/June 2009) - you can get it on newstands or I'm pretty sure you can sign up for an electronic version on-line.

Steve