Gene researcher is trying to create a new life form

By Bob Drummond BLOOMBERG NEWS -- High on a wall facing celebrity gene researcher Craig Venter’s desk, there’s a poster-size photo of unique colonies of bacteria that look like two luminescent sky-blue blobs. Venter’s researchers made the microbes in his lab northwest of Washington by transplanting the entire genetic code of one species of bacteria into the cellular body of another type. Like horror-movie zombies, the intruder genes switched on and took control of their hosts.

Groundbreaking in its own right, the genome transplant was a practice run for Venter’s more audacious project: creating a new life form — in this case, a species of built-to-order bacteria — using only man-made DNA.

Designer organisms, and the potential to profit from them, are sparking excitement — and debate — among scientists and venture capital investors. Researchers in an emerging field called synthetic biology envision microbes customized with artificial genes to enable them to turn sunlight into fuel, clean up industrial waste or monitor patients for the first signs of disease.

Already, scientists are producing strings of man-made DNA, short for deoxyribonucleic acid, which directs the functions of all living cells. Then they splice the manufactured DNA into the genes of existing organisms, reprogramming bacteria to act like microscopic factories churning out biofuels.

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