Redesigning Life to Make Ethanol

Technology Review: Redesigning Life to Make Ethanol: "Synthetic Genomics' approach is based on research that Venter's Institute for Genomic Research conducted on a micro�rganism called Mycoplasma genitalium in the late 1990s. The microbe, which dwells in the human urinary tract, has only 517 genes. While that's the smallest genome seen in any life form known, researchers in Venter's group showed that the organism could survive even after they had knocked out almost half of its protein-coding genes (some genes code not for proteins but for other biomolecules that perform regulatory functions within the cell). Using the DNA sequence of this 'minimal genome' as a guide, they are now attempting to synthesize an artificial chromosome that, inserted into a hollowed-out cell, will lead to a viable life form. Once they are over this first hurdle, they plan to build synthesized, task-specific genetic pathways into the genome, much the way one might load software onto a computer's operating system. Rather than create spreadsheets or do word processing, however, such 'biologically based software' would instruct the cell to break down cellulose to produce ethanol or carry out other useful functions. 'This is a totally new field on the verge of explosion,' says Venter."