In a move ripped straight from the kind of science fiction that tends to end badly, scientists have been given the go-ahead to create synthetic human DNA. Called the Synthetic Human Genome (SynHG) Project, its announcement came on the 25th anniversary of the Human Genome Project’s completion.
The Human Genome Project was a thirteen-year effort to map the entire human genome, identifying all of the different sections of human DNA to “[accelerate] the study of human biology and [improve] the practice of medicine.”
Maybe DNA do that
Now, researchers in the UK are taking the next step — creating artificial sections of DNA at the molecular level for insertion into… well, humans. Eventually, the SynHG project could well synthesise an entire artificial DNA strand, although it’s uncertain whether this would be possible within its current five-year timeframe.
SynHG scientists will begin by creating larger sections of DNA until they can create a chromosome from scratch. These will be studied rather than implemented, according to Professor Matthew Hurles.
Hurles, director of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, “Building DNA from scratch allows us to test out how DNA really works and test out new theories, because currently we can only really do that by tweaking DNA in DNA that already exists in living systems.”
The Institute was key in completing the Human Genome Project and is tied to the Wellcome Trust, the UK’s largest medical charity. The Trust put up the initial £10 million in funding for the SynHG project. Doctor Julian Sale of Cambridge’s MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, one of the institutes involved in the new artificial DNA research, believes the research will benefit humanity at large.
“We are looking to use this approach to generate disease-resistant cells we can use to repopulate damaged organs, for example in the liver and the heart, even the immune system,” he said. There’s still the potential for misuse, even if the initial aim is entirely altruistic.
It’s a long way from synthetic molecules to an entirely artificial human, provided some mad scientist is willing to take the leap and mature an artificially constructed embryo. That’s not on the cards for the SynHG project, though there are fears that someone will take the step. That’s the concern of Doctor Pat Thomas of Beyond GM, who said, “If we manage to create synthetic body parts or even synthetic people, then who owns them. And who owns the data from these creations?”
