Synthetic life

A scientist who has created a synthetic life form has put the science world in a spin. Geneticist Craig Venter unveiled a major scientific breakthrough last week when he showed the world a new form of life he created in the laboratory. He made his artificial creation from a stem cell, biochemicals and yeast. Dr Venter claims his new organism has DNA that has never existed on Earth before. The cells he made will pave the way for more complex ones. Venter believes manmade life will be an important part of all science in the future. In 2007, he said: “Synthetic [life] is going to become the standard for making anything.” He believes it will provide amazing new cures for diseases and help in the fight against climate change. Environmentalists are up in arms over Venter’s work. They believe it is a major threat to our existence. Campaigners are fighting to ban any form of synthetic life from getting into the wild. One campaigner, Jim Thomas, expressed his fears to Britain’s ‘Independent’ newspaper: "Synthetic biology is a high-risk, profit-driven field, building organisms out of parts that are still poorly understood. We know that lab-created life forms can escape and become biological weapons, and that their use threatens existing natural biodiversity," he said. Mr Thomas is worried about what oil companies will do with Mr Venter’s work, saying: "Most worrying of all, Craig Venter is handing this powerful technology to the likes of BP and Exxon to hasten the commercialisation of synthetic life-forms."