from the total-test-tube-replication dept.
Two nanodot readers wrote to report a BBC News story: First synthetic virus created. A team of scientists at the State University of New York at Stony Brook assembled a complete synthetic DNA copy of a poliovirus genome, transcribed the DNA into RNA using a purified enzyme, and translated and replicated the RNA in a cell free extract "resulting in the de novo synthesis of infectious poliovirus." Although no fundamentally new technology was used, the milestone demonstrates the power of current biotechnology. The research paper "Chemical Synthesis of Poliovirus cDNA: Generation of Infectious Virus in the Absence of Natural Template" by Jeronimo Cello, Aniko V. Paul, and Eckard Wimmer was published by Science online (subscription required) July 11, 2002, with the print issue to appear in a few weeks.
flicker writes "This story should have a special resonance for those of us thinking about synthetic replicators that can survive in the wild. They just stepped out of the pages of fiction and into the real world. Is it just me, or does this ring of a major watershed event?"
Mr_Farlops writes "Perhaps as the final nail in the coffin of vitalism, scientists in the United States have created the living from the non-living by assembling a virus from raw gene sequences. This act has many implications for medicine, ethics, biological warfare, nanotechnology and artificial life. The researchers say that it is only a matter of time before more ambitious life creation projects are attempted."
