CAN WE CREATE LIFE? SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY AND BIOBRICKS

can we create life what even is life and what are living things made of these have always been some of the most perennial questions in human history but now we do understand what living things are made of and it just so happens to be the exact same thing nonliving things are made of molecules the DNA molecule contains everything that there is to know about any particular organism and in the present day we can finally build our own custom DNA from scratch this pioneering new field of science is called synthetic biology and it is full of endless possibilities synthetic biology also called sin bio or Franken life is the next step of genetic engineering involving the redesign of existing life for new purposes altogether but most importantly synthetic biology involves the creation of entirely new species species that could one day help us achieve immortality unlike genomics which allows us to read DNA or CRISPR which allows us to edit DNA synthetic biology lets us become the architects of DNA this time instead of taking genes from one organism and putting them into another we're gonna cut out the middleman and just build the ideal organism from the ground up in my previous video on xenobiology I already talked about creating organisms made from alternate forms of DNA called XNA but now I'm talking about designing those information sequences themselves gene by gene synthetic biologists are creating artificial life in a similar fashion to how Frankenstein assembled his monster from different pieces but the pieces we use are at the genetic level rather than the anatomical level in fact we can now design novel living systems and new species from a set of standardized genetic parts called bio bricks think of them as let's say genetic Legos and just as with Legos the amount of things you can create are virtually limitless these bio bricks can be assembled into custom chromosomes and the resulting artificial DNA can then be put into empty cells by this principle we can create new microbial life that does whatever we want it to and it's the first step to programming millions of tiny biological robots that will keep our bodies healthy forever since there are 10 times as many bacterial cells in our bodies as there are human cells it makes them a vast untapped source of potential for fighting deadly disease with synthetic biology we can one day reprogram these bacteria into microscopic medical drones called biobots which could then implement therapeutic effects for any disease you can imagine we might also be able to create bacteria that can synthesize biofuels extend life expectancy or even excrete life-saving pharmaceutical drugs and just as synthetic chemistry grew out of physics synthetic biology will inevitably grow out of genetics dr. craig Venter the father of synthetic biology has already taken the first steps to this goal his team has spent 15 long years sequencing the DNA of the bacteria and then artificially reproduced that bacteria from scratch as a starting point they chose to create mycoplasma genitalium the smallest bacterium in the world mycoplasma has the fewest genes of any living thing coming in at only 1 million DNA base pairs in length and since it doesn't have that many genes it's not too hard to create a blueprint for one Venter chose it as a model because he wanted to recreate an organism with the smallest genome possible helping us understand which foundational genes are essential for survival and then build up from there in 2010 scientists at the J craig Venter Institute created an entire organism from scratch they did this by sequencing the mycoplasma genome and then coding it into a computer from there they reconstructed the entire genome with a DNA printer along with a few biomarkers in the genetic code so they could track and identify the creature once they printed the genome they injected it into an empty cell creating the world's first artificial bacteria appropriately named Cynthia overall the experiment was a success healed as the world's first synthetic organism whose father was a piece of computer code the claim was backed by a paper demonstrating that Venters new artificial cell does in fact fit the scientific definition of life meaning it was able to survive make energy grow and successfully reproduce by itself but make no mistake we still have a long way to go Cynthia's genome only had 500 genes but humans have over 20,000 genes and were not even sure what half of whom do overall even though Cynthia was artificially created in a lab it still isn't true synthetic biology because it was just a copy of an organism already designed by Nature however all that is about to change just last year Venters team decided to try again but this time with a custom genome that they designed while Cynthia's genome was just a ripoff of mycoplasma this new organism is a custom species which the scientists made by deleting all of Cynthia's genes they didn't like and only putting in the genes they considered ideal in fact Venter designed this new creature with as few basic genes as possible because he wanted to see how small he could make the DNA and still have a viable organism which would prove to the world that a man-made bacteria could survive in nature just as well as a natural one can when the team finished the project the resulting creature had the smallest genome of any known organism and that includes all the natural ones dr. venture called this new organism mycoides JCV syn 3.0 and it only had a mere 473 genes however dr. Venters team still don't know what a hundred 49 of those genes even do meaning that we could possibly make one even smaller all in the hopes of creating the first life that humans can 100% understand which would mean we'd have the world's first fully predictable organism a basic foundation that we can keep adding genes to and build up to more complex life this is because a bacteria with a large genetic code makes it harder to understand the role of each individual gene but dr. Venters synthetic bacteria is just so basic that it can help us isolate every single gene and see what they all do with 100% certainty if the bacteria dies when a gene is taken out then scientists will know which genes make you age in which genes make you live longer we can then keep using trial and error until we finally get an immortal bacteria and then maybe a few decades later perhaps even an immortal animal or dare I say it an immortal human dr. Venter hopes to build his synthetic zoo using BioBricks DNA sequences that code for specific functions like turning genes on or off his team was able to discover these BioBricks by deleting specific genes from Cynthia until she died which then let the scientists know how much of the genome is actually useful and how much is evolutionary junk the researchers did this by breaking Cynthia's genome down into 101 pieces that they called cassettes they then tried many different combinations of these cassettes until they created a synthetic bacteria that could finally survive discovering these BioBricks is important because the genes of this bacteria are not unique to the bacteria in fact you could find 90% of its genes in a mouse and many more in humans - if we could just assemble a large enough library of BioBricks then maybe we could create a synthetic amoeba or a synthetic jellyfish or a synthetic insect or a synthetic mouse perhaps one day a synthetic human baby but don't get too excited this level of genetic design is definitely decades away regardless Venters research has still created a revolution in customizable microbes in fact scientists all around the world are now creating their own synthetic bacterial bio engineers and pharmaceutical companies are making designer microbes that serve very specific functions and since all humans have gut bacteria the opportunity of programming these microbes could lead to a new age of personalized medicine perhaps the humans of the future will be able to walk into a pharmacy and pick out custom bacteria just like they'd pick out food in a grocery store maybe they'd ring up some pills full of bacteria that could fix their lactose intolerance maybe the growing number of obese people could bring up some bacteria to metabolize their food differently allowing them to alter which molecules the bacteria in their stomachs can break down to control which specific compounds our intestines absorb potentially letting us eat whatever we want and never get fat which begs the question what kinds of custom gut bacteria have we already designed to cater to our winds well researchers at MIT have taken the first step they created a Frankenstein version of bacteria DS theta Iowa micron instead of breaking down non-digestible polysaccharides this synthetic bacteria identifies them so that we can catch and treat deadly diseases before they even show symptoms they can identify deadly diseases like inflammatory bowel syndrome and perhaps we could even use them to identify things like colon cancer or pancreatic cancer the disease that killed Steve Jobs maybe we could also program the bacteria to make your poop glow whenever they come into contact with an unhealthy diet which would definitely reduce the demand for doctors visits and dietitians but that's not all because these bio BOTS can also help us fight diseases in addition to identifying them in a study published in ACS synthetic biology researchers synthesized a bacteria to seek and destroy a dangerous bug called P aeruginosa which kills us using harmful biofilms in our lungs gut and bladder P aeruginosa could not be destroyed using generic pharmaceuticals so instead the scientists programmed synthetic bacteria with enzymes that could break down the biofilms and cure the disease furthermore the John Hopkins School of Engineering has even received a 5.7 million dollar federal contract to help DARPA develop so-called synthetic enforcer cells that would hunt down and kill Legionella which you might recognize as the malicious bacteria that causes Legionnaires disease the FDA has now begun testing the efficacy of these synthetic bacterial treatments to see if they can cure these diseases without causing any trouble themselves in theory if we could make these bacteria survive and coexist alongside our natural gut bacteria then it would create a revolutionary set of medical tools to help us dramatically extend human life expectancy this led some scientists to call for a quote unquote human microbiome project an initiative that would sequence every species of bacteria in the human gut and figure out how they all work together this human microbiome project could even join the human genome project the human transcriptome project in the human proteome project as a systems biology approach to helping us understand how aging works over all these biobots definitely sound like they could create utopia on earth but putting synthetic bacteria into people has never been done before and we don't know if we could even control it furthermore are these synthetic bacteria even safe what if these syn bio organisms escape the lab go down the drains and get into our food if we're going to program instructions into bacterial DNA then we'll still need to find a way to control those bacteria with a kind of genetic switch because creating life is one thing but controlling it is a whole other endeavor even if the bacteria do work fine at first they can eventually become dangerous and transmitted from person-to-person bioethicists are finally starting to take notice of synthetic biology as a very serious existential threat it might be getting out of control because there's already many online catalogs for synthetic biology components even biobrick construction kits can be ordered through the web this means that people in their basements can obtain the gene fragments in the same fashion that you'd go to an auto shop to buy parts after all ordering BioBricks from the internet would allow the assembly of a custom genetic code to become as easy as typing up a blog post in fact somebody somewhere might be doing synthetic biology in their kitchen as you're listening to this this concept commonly evokes the possibility of three main existential risks the superbug scenario the green goo scenario and the so-called Bo w scenario first of all we have the very real possibility of a superbug pandemic we've all seen just how dangerous bacteria can be for example the Black Plague caused by the bacteria yesenia pestis kill 50% of population in Europe alone it was the greatest pandemic in history eradicating about hundred million people this fact alone should make us very nervous about putting these creatures into our bodies however it should be noted that people in the 14th century had no knowledge of germ theory quarantine or antibiotics perhaps modern medicine could stop such a pandemic if it ever happened again but can we really be sure luckily if modern medicine doesn't work we have a plan B scientists at the nasa ames research facility have found a solution to this problem by locking the synthetic bacteria inside tiny nano molecular cages that way the synthetic microbes can be tightly contained before we put them into people the researchers call it a quote unquote bio capsule a tiny cage made of carbon nanotubes that could imprison bacteria in a limited space so that they don't replicate out of control the carbon forms a permanent meshwork of holes only a few nanometers long the holes are too small for the bacteria to escape but still large enough for the therapeutic molecules they make to get to our cells but of course this idea isn't perfect because evolution always has a way of getting around things in life for example what happens if a single bacterium escapes the bio capsule and replicates out of control or worse what if it escapes the laboratory and gets into the ecosystem not just infecting humans but disrupting the global food chain and causing mass ecological devastation worldwide this danger brings us to the so called green goo scenario which asks if a single bacteria could escape the lab and wreak havoc all over the earth for example synthetic anaerobic bacteria could potentially get into the ocean and mass replicate releasing Megaton after Megaton of sulfur based gases into the atmosphere maybe they'd crowd near the coastlines of California Europe and Australia making the air in those regions toxic and unbreathable their uncontrolled replication might even create an over abundance or scarcity of fish destabilizing ocean populations and disrupting the ecological balance of the entire world this could create a so called trophic cascade initiating mass extinction of ecologically essential species wrecking the global food chain in fact if the genetically engineered superbugs we make are hardy enough they could even mass replicate exponentially and consume the face of our entire biosphere you can't stop the green goo by nuking it because some bacteria like archaea might be extremophiles and are highly resistant to radiation however if quarantines and bio capsules fail we actually do have a plan see in case these synthetic organisms are released into the wild leading scientists around the world have called for mandatory regulations to add quote-unquote kill switches into the genes of synthetic organisms a kill switch is a safety mechanism that could be turned on by certain environmental conditions outside of the lab it's basically a genetic self-destruct button that goes off whenever the bacteria are exposed to the outside world another kill switch could be a gene that makes the bacteria dependent on synthetic lab chemicals to survive meaning they will die if they aren't regularly fed specific molecules by their human overlords this would mean that if the bacteria ever escaped from the lab they will essentially starve to death the kill switch method seems pretty foolproof but existential risk researchers have pointed out another problem in fact the biggest problem is not with people ingesting the bacteria or with bacteria escaping the lab but rather with bio terrorists intentionally infecting people with them the danger of bio terrorists creating artificial superbugs with no self-destruct button brings us to the Bo W scenario a bo w or bio-organic weapon is an organism intentionally created or genetically modified to become infectious for example you could genetically modify the black death to become airborne or create a custom super germ from scratch immune to all antibiotics open-source genetic engineering could unleash a Pandora's box where political radicals create uncurable synthetic biobots and unleash them on areas that they deem politically unfavorable furthermore the massive rate that new species are created could lead to an explosion of biodiversity with millions of new bacteria coming into existence around the globe it would be a phenomena akin to the biodiversity in the Cambrian explosion 500 million years ago and we would not know how to deal with it fortunately we have a plan D the best way to stop these potential superbugs would be to kill them off using viruses called bacteria phages which we could make with the same synthetic biology that we use to create the bacteria if a new form of green goo or pandemic plague could be contained long enough then w-h-o scientists might be able to create a cure engineering a counter bio weapon that specifically attacks the bacteria a synthetic bacteriophage designed with a custom target however this method has one small problem because if we can use synthetic biology to create viruses then so can they this brings up a serious question of whether or not the bio terrorists will create their own viruses as well we eradicated smallpox back in the 1970s but with synthetic biology we can bring it back the concept was demonstrated last year when Canadian scientists from the University of Alberta reconstructed an extinct horse pox virus with nothing but mail-order DNA fragments but that's a topic for another time in general it seems that synthetic biology will always carry some degree of existential risk it's the price we pay for a technology that can do so many amazing things in a utilitarian sense you could say synthetic biology is helping more people than it hurts in conclusion synthetic biology is momentous because we're not just editing genes anymore we're developing all new kinds of species altogether new species that could help with the maintenance of our bodies the production of biofuels and the productivity of our crops it'll definitely be very dangerous but the risk is well worth it because through this technology we will finally master the language of biology deciphering the code of life and programming our bodies away from death we've now turned biology into a programmable medium a source code that could allow us to create anything we want ascending into godhood we have become the architects of life itself [Music] you

Channel: TRANSHUMANIA

Views: 19,004

Rating: 4.8888888 out of 5

Keywords: Live, Forever, Organism, DNA, Biology, Synbio, Frankenlife, Design, CRISPR, Frankenstein, Biobrick, Genetic, Gene, Mirobial, Microbe, Bacteria, Disease, Biobot, Biofuel, Pharmaceutical, Documentary, News, Science, Technology, Future, Futurism, Fiction, Craig, Venter, Synthia, Synthesis, Genome, Cell, Life, Extension, Longevity, Custom, Aging, customizable, Fecal, Transplant, Digest, Poop, Glow, Enzyme, Microbiome, Superbug, Immortalism, Transhumanism, Pandemic, Epidemic, Bioterrorism, Green, Goo, Trophic, Cascade, Bacteriophage, Bioweapon, Virus, Cure

Id: wo4BlOeydmI

Length: 19min 58sec (1198 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 08 2018