Synthetic Life Announced by Craig Venter–All About the Code and Sequencing the Genome

This may be a little heavy for most to comprehend but this is more of a technical report on how synthetic life and cell control was created. This is about a 25 minute video. Pay particular attention here to his comments talking about “debugging” as we have this too with software for healthcare and for medical devices, listen to the time elements he talks about and when crunching down on programmers, realize the complexity of this process. He talks about the code within the code and within the code.

He’s announcing the first synthetic cell from 4 bottles of chemicals and using yeast. This is the first self replicating species who’s parent is the computer and has it’s own website too. Notice the use of “booting the cell”.

Mathematicians are the key he said here up front of the biotech side, again getting the code so the secondary portion can work. He mentions the policy issues with the White House and Congress (if they understand it). Flu vaccines with Novartis are discussed and how much faster the vaccine can be made. Also mentioned is use of his technology with oil companies to develop new strings of algae at the end of his talk. BD

If this is a bit heavy, use the link below to see the recent 60 Minutes video and interview with Craig Venter.

J. Craig Venter and "Synthetic Life" With Man Made DNA–60 Minute Report (Video)

Here’s another video from a couple years ago with sequencing discussed on the boat done by Wired and PBS.

Craig Venter and team make a historic announcement: they've created the first fully functioning, reproducing cell controlled by synthetic DNA. He explains how they did it and why the achievement marks the beginning of a new era for science.

In 2001, Craig Venter made headlines for sequencing the human genome. In 2003, he started mapping the ocean's biodiversity. And now, in 2010, he's created the first synthetic life forms -- microorganisms that can produce alternative fuels