Synthetic lifeform created for first time-amazing.

[marvenger]

Re: Synthetic lifeform created for first time-amazing.

ok but what about the generations of communal effort in assisted evolution of crops more suited for human needs being attached to these spliced in additions that are genrally additions for commercial reasons rather than human health and security. In my view, this is much like the legal trick of artificial life you're talking about.

[c1ue]

Re: Synthetic lifeform created for first time-amazing.

ok but what about the generations of communal effort in assisted evolution of crops more suited for human needs being attached to these spliced in additions that are genrally additions for commercial reasons rather than human health and security. In my view, this is much like the legal trick of artificial life you're talking about.

Again, you are totally correct. The wheat, corn, soybeans, potatoes, etc etc that are grown today represent literally thousands of years of pre- as well as post- Mendelian articial selection.

Unfortunately since no one owns these improvements, the field is open for cynical exploitation of this 'commons'.

Again, the fault is with the patent system, and by extension the entire 'adversarial' nature of the American legal system.

100 years ago, any attempt to patent a corn seed would have been laughed out of court, if not stoned.

It may have all started from this:

http://whatscookingamerica.net/avacado.htm

My mom, Faith (Hass) Wilkes knows how the Hass avocado came to be, so I will share it with you . . . After reading a magazine article illustrated with an Avocado Tree with dollar bills hanging from it, Grandpa bought a small 1 1/2 acre grove in La Habra Heights in 1925. There were a few Fuerte avocado trees.
He planted the rest of the grove on 12 foot centers with three seeds in each hole. He hired a professional grafter named Mr. Caulkins, to graft cuttings from the existing Fuerte trees onto the strongest of the three trees from each hole. All but three "took". The next year Mr. Caulkins re-grafted those three trees. The following year Mr. Caulkins re-grafted the one tree that had rejected the graft again. Again it didn't take. Grandpa was ready to give up and chop the tree down, but Mr. Caulkins said it was a good strong tree. He advised Grandpa to just let it grow and see what happens. So he did. The Hass avocado happened. Grandpa Hass only planted the seed, Mr. Caulkins did the grafting, and God gave the increase.
Grandpa patented the Hass Avocado in 1935 but, since it was the first patent ever issued on a tree, it got no respect. Growers would buy one tree from Mr. Brokaw who had the exclusive right to produce the nursery trees. They would then re-graft their whole grove with the bud wood from that one tree. For that reason Rudolph Hass made only $5,000 royalties on his patent. However, he was the first to have a producing grove of Hass Avocados, all be it a very small grove. He found a ready market for the fruit at the Model Grocery Store in Pasadena where the chefs for wealthy people who lived on South Orange Grove Street shopped. Once they sampled the Hass variety, they insisted on it. My mom, her sister, and three brothers worked with Grandma and Grandpa harvesting and also sold avocados from a roadside stand by the grove at 430 West Road in La Habra, California.
Every Hass avocado tree today is descended from that original tree. There is a plaque commemorating the location of the parent tree but the tree died of root rot and was cut down on 9/11/2002 at the ripe old age of 76 (It was planted in 1926). That is very old for an avocado tree. The wood from the tree is stored at the nursery run by Mr. Brokaw's nephew. Some of the wood has been made into jewelry, gifts, and keepsakes by Mr. Hass's Nephew, Richard Stewart. He gave them to members of the Hass family and some members of the Avocado Growers Association.

[Guinnesstime]

Re: Synthetic lifeform created for first time-amazing.

I don't think I would call this a stunt. I read the manuscript that he published and while my field is not in genetics it appears to be legitimate research. However this asshat is making what I would call a biological land grab with his talk of patenting his synthetic lifeform. However from what I understand he has not created anything new just a very rudimentary copy of very basic bacterium.

Patenting life is wrong.

[blazespinnaker]

Re: Synthetic lifeform created for first time-amazing.

Patenting the process of stitching it together and inserting into a cell seems OK to me. Why not?

I'm sure there are lots of different ways to do that.

And it certainly isn't a publicity stunt. It's a milestone. He's shown you can design DNA on a computer, generate the DNA completely from the computer, and then put it in a cell.

As this process becomes more streamlined .. perhaps even to the point we can simulate it all inside a computer, it should get pretty exciting from a research point of view.

[c1ue]

Re: Synthetic lifeform created for first time-amazing.

And it certainly isn't a publicity stunt. It's a milestone. He's shown you can design DNA on a computer, generate the DNA completely from the computer, and then put it in a cell.

As this process becomes more streamlined .. perhaps even to the point we can simulate it all inside a computer, it should get pretty exciting from a research point of view.

Patenting a technique is fine, patenting a result which copies an existing creature is not.

It should be noted that there was no mention whatsoever of simulation. The article quoted clearly states that all that was done was to reassemble an pre-existing genome from DNA blocks and that this was done manually - unless computers have hands that can 'use yeast'.

The role of the computer was likely primarily just to keep track of the highly complex process since again it was almost certainly not assembled serially.

I do agree it is a milestone, but it also is a publicity stunt.

Much as the Human Genome project was a milestone, and a publicity stunt.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Synthetic lifeform created for first time-amazing.

The article quoted clearly states that all that was done was to reassemble an pre-existing genome from DNA blocks and that this was done manually

It was not entirely a pre-existing genome. They changed it, adding encodings of the researchers names and other such non-functional stuff.

I doubt it was done with hands (manually), either human or computer. It was done with specialized equipment.

[Minion]

Re: Synthetic lifeform created for first time-amazing.

Same as GM seeds, they didn't create anything. They just tampered with what already was.

This is the genetic equivalent of keynes economics. They "stimulated" the genetic code to get a short term "improvement".

Because we're all dead in the long term, right? I wonder why?