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Biotech's Brave New World: Push One To Create Life; Push Two To Create Alien Life
It’s been a good month for miracles. And by miracles I mean our oldest miracle, that first miracle, the creation of life itself.
During these first weeks in May, two separate teams working at two separate institutions announced that when it comes to creating life from scratch, well, there are a couple of new gods in town.
Of course, if we’re talking about creating life from scratch, we most first mention the old gods, which is to say, this is when biologist Craig Venter comes into the discussion.
A few decades back, while he was working to read the human genome (i.e. the Human Genome Project), Venter also began wondering what it would take to write one. He wanted to know, “what does the minimal genome required for life look like?”
Back then, DNA synthesis technology was too crude and expensive to consider writing a minimum genome for life, but exponential advances in biotechnology obliterated these problems. Consider “synthetic biology,” which moves the work from the molecular to the digital. In syn-bio, genetic code is manipulated using the equivalent of a word processor. With the press of a button, DNA can be cut and pasted, effortlessly imported from one species into another. Single letters can be swapped in and out with precision. And once the code looks right? Just hit send. A dozen different DNA print shops can now turn these bits into biology.
English: DNA replication or DNA synthesis is the process of copying a double-stranded DNA molecule. This process is paramount to all life as we know it. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In May of 2010, with the help of these new tools, Venter answered his question: creating the world’s first self-replicating, synthetic chromosome.
To pull this off, he used a computer to design a novel bacterial genome (over a million base pairs in total). Once the design was complete, the code was emailed to Blue Heron Biotechnology, who specializes in synthesizing DNA from digital blueprints. Blue Heron took Venter’s blueprint and returned a vial filled with freeze-dried strands of the DNA. Just as one might load an operating system into a computer, Venter inserted the synthetic DNA into a host bacterial cell that had been emptied of its own DNA. Soon, the cell “booted up,” that is, began generating proteins, starting to metabolize, grow, and, most importantly, divide. One cell became two, two became four, four became eight. And each new cell carried only Venter’s synthetic instructions. For all practical purposes, it was an altogether new life form, created from scratch. Venter called it “the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer.”
This in itself was huge news—but it was also yesterday’s news.
This month, Autodesk, the design and engineering software company, booted up a synthetic bacteriophage—aka a virus—then 3-D printed the result. What is a software design company doing in the virus business? “Well,” says Andrew Hessel, Autodesk ADSK +0.62% distinguished researcher, “we’re considering the possibility that you can write software for living things with bio-code (aka DNA).”
And the craziest part—Venter’s effort took five years of research, Autodesk, meanwhile, took two weeks and about $1000.
At roughly the same time this work was going on, over at Scripps Research Institute, in La Jolla, California, scientists succeeded in creating the very first organism with “alien” DNA, what the researchers involved called: “a semi-synthetic organism with an expanded genetic alphabet.”
Extreme Tech has a great description of the work:
In normal DNA, which can be found within the genes of every organism, the twin strands of the double helix are bonded together with four bases, known as T, G, A, and C. In this new organism, the researchers added two new bases, X and Y, creating a new form of DNA that (as far as we know) has never occurred after billions of years of evolution on Earth or elsewhere in the universe. Remarkably, the semi-synthetic alien organism continued to reproduce normally, preserving the new alien DNA during reproduction.
So what does all this mean going forward? Hard to say for sure. But one thing for certain, sooner or later, we’re going to need a new definition of the miraculous.
*For more of Steven’s work, check out his latest book, The Rise of Superman.
Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenkotler/2014/05/12/biotechs-brave-new-world-push-one-to-create-life-push-two-to-create-alien-life/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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