Researcher Elizabeth Strychalski and her team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology are pioneering the development of measurement tools and standards crucial for advancing synthetic biology, also known as engineering biology.
Credit: J. Stoughton/NIST
Are we on the brink of a bio-revolution? Scientists are creating life from scratch with synthetic biology, offering new hope for pollution cleanup and medicine, but raising ethical concerns. Is this the future, or a disaster waiting to happen?
“Playing God”: Inside the Lab Where Scientists are Cooking Up Life Itself.
Welcome to the Age of DIY Life.
Step aside Frankenstein, science is about to get a whole lot weirder.
No cloning, no test tubes – this is life built from zero, folks.
Scientists are giving Mother Nature a run for her money. For as long as we’ve been here, she’s been in charge of creating life, but now, with synthetic biology in the mix, a little biology, chemistry, and engineering is all it takes to cook up life.
We’re talking microscopic organisms that clean the environment by chowing down on pollution like it’s their favourite snack, or generate renewable energy like it’s going out of fashion. It’s like nature’s had a 21st-century makeover, and trust us, she’s looking very different.
With recent advancements in technology, it’s full throttle. Scientists are trying to create living cells that can grow, eat, and yes, even reproduce.
But let’s get one thing straight, there is no magic wand that whips up life out of nowhere; no, it’s more like the ultimate cheat code for DNA, tweaking and twisting it with surgical precision.
According to U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology physicist Elizabeth A. Strychalski, “We’re closer than we’ve ever been”. The pursuit to create synthetic living cells from scratch is something “that is, if not on our doorstep, maybe, at our mailbox.”
Researchers have been working around the clock, and have even come up with a way to produce a basic version of a membrane, mitochondria and other cellular components. In a jaw-dropping breakthrough, they can now manipulate minuscule amounts of fluid, and start to nudge these artificial cell parts into interacting and communicating with each other.
Science Fiction or This is Science Fact?
If you’re wondering why we’d need custom-built organisms crawling or slithering around town, buckle up because things are about to get wild. These tiny creatures could soon be munching on plastics, pollution, or even delivering life-saving drugs straight to your body.
Imagine a painfully bored Greta Thunberg, scrolling Instagram all day long. Nothing to do. Just picture a close-up of Greta’s face for a second. Pollution is gone forever. Gretta is out of a job, while microscopic creatures munch away at filth like it’s a plain quarter pounder with cheese, with no sauce or gherkins.
And in the medical world, we’re on the edge of a revolution where these tiny beasts will deliver drugs straight to the problem, like an Amazon Prime delivery service inside your body. No more waiting, no side effects, just pure, lightning-speed healing.
But What’s the Catch? Life Comes at a Cost…
Of course, creating life in a lab sounds like a genius idea. Nothing could possibly go wrong. But – and this is a big famine-resistant “but” – as with all bonkers scientific projects, there’s a potential price to pay. Life finds a way…
So, the big questions start. What even counts as “life” now? Are we heading into a future where big businesses start patenting life itself? It’s all feeling a bit Black Mirror, isn’t it?
‘Life, Uh… Finds A Way’.
So, what’s on the horizon? Well, today, it’s lab-made life. Tomorrow, we could be custom-building our very own Woolly Mammoths like Paris Hilton and Chris Hemsworth, or even designer humans. Why not? The possibilities are endless, and, if we’re honest, a little terrifying.
So, is this the start of a brave new world, or a disaster waiting to happen? Either way, one thing’s for sure, to quote the great Dr. Ian Malcolm; “if there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously… life, uh… finds a way.”
Jurassic Park wisdom aside, this is not the first time real-life scientists have dabbled in playing creator. Back in 2010, raging brainiacs at the J. Craig Venter Institute pulled off the first synthetic life form, building a bacterial genome from scratch and sticking it into a cell. That marked the first self-replicating life controlled by synthetic DNA, a first domino in what quite literally could be the end of life as we know it, in the long term.
Scientists have now taken things to a whole new level. Thanks to advancements in bioengineering, the life forms being created now are more advanced than ever, and they’re being designed with specific goals in mind. Whether it’s cleaning up pollution or delivering life-saving drugs, these new organisms are changing the game.
It’s a brave new world out there, and we’re only just scratching the surface of what’s possible.
