Scientific showman out to dazzle the world with genetics

When J Craig Venter announced the creation of a synthetic cell this week he was accused of playing God. But stirring up controversy is in the scientist’s DNA

IF EVER the scientific world had a showman, that entertainer would be J Craig Venter. The California-based researcher knows how to do big science – and how to work the media and attract attention.

On Thursday he grabbed global headlines with the announcement that he had created a “synthetic cell”, a living organism built from scratch. He described the resultant organism, a bacterium, as “the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer”. This was a reference to the fact that its entire genetic blueprint, its DNA, had been assembled rather than grown.

Big names in the scientific world immediately raised doubts, including the respected scientist David Baltimore. They pointed out that Venter had not created a new life form but only successfully copied an existing bacterial genome and then inserted it into another bacterium to create the synthetic cell.

Of course, the showman himself never claimed he had created a new species, only that he had built a genome to order, added a few genes to prove it was his own, and then animated the construct by inserting it into another bacterium. He let others build up the story for him, knowing it was too big for the media to ignore.

It is a stunning piece of work, mainly because the manufactured DNA actually came to life. It doesn’t matter that he duplicated the genetic blueprint of an existing bug: he showed that an artificial, hand-built genome can be made to live.

This is Venter at his best, delivering good science that riles other scientists, raises a firestorm of ethical questions and asks profound questions about the meaning of life. He has a track record at this kind of thing.

He became notorious during the race to deliver the world’s first map of human DNA in the Human Genome Project. This 10-year, billion-dollar effort brought scientists together across the world, including Irish scientists, who each worked to deliver their own bit of the three-billion-step-long genome.

Venter participated early on, too, but then became impatient at the slow delivery and high cost of the project. He won private backing to open Celera Genomics and went straight into competition with the international project. Those behind the project wanted the genome to be made available free of charge to any researcher who wanted it, but Celera was ready to begin patenting anything of interest that looked like it had commercial potential.

Venter didn’t get his way, but he did help push the project along, with the genome arriving in 2000, three years ahead of schedule, because of Venter’s involvement. And he has been pushing ever since, driven by the idea that artificial species created to deliver useful products.

Even as the human genome was being sequenced he stirred the pot by declaring at the 1999 American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Anaheim, California, that he was going to “create life” by building a new species.

Several years ago he claimed he had assembled the minimum package of genes required to build a living organism. Now he has moved yet closer to that promise by copying a recipe used by nature.

Will he finally achieve his goal of creating a wholly new species? The answer depends on your definition of new. He has already shown that he can copy an existing genome, add extra genes to it and then make it live, but is that a new species? Scientists are already doing this by building extra genes into plants and animals using conventional genetic engineering.

Venter’s technique would provide exquisite control over how genes might be placed in an existing genome, but that still isn’t new life. The question is: do we know what genes are necessary to design a new life form that can be made to live? The answer is: not yet.

Venter is trying, though. In 2005 he set up Synthetic Genomics, a company that has an interest in this latest research. Venter sails the world’s seas in his yacht, collecting algae and bacteria. The goal is to genetically modify algae – or build a new species – that can take carbon from the air and produce fuel.

The oil giant Exxon helped things along in July last year by promising $600 million if the company could deliver results.

Venter will now sit back and let the headlines flow. Expect to hear about him again when he announces the next step in his effort to deliver a unique species built not by God or evolution but by the hand of Venter.