Science & Technology

Major synthetic life breakthrough achieved

By T.K. Randall
December 1, 2014 ·  5 comments

The breakthrough is being hailed as significant. Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 US Army RDECOM The enzymes, which could open the door to new medical treatments for diseases such as cancer and Ebola, were created at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.

"Synthetic biology is delivering some truly amazing advances that promise to change the way we understand and treat disease," said Professor Peter Maxwell of the Medical Research Council.

"The UK excels in this field and this latest advance offers the tantalising prospect of using designer biological parts as a starting point for an entirely new class of therapies and diagnostic tools that are more effective and have a longer shelf-life."The creation of synthetic life forms could ultimately enable scientists to create biological molecules capable of performing tasks ranging from creating new drugs to detoxifying polluted land.

It could also help shed some light on the possibility of finding life elsewhere in the universe.

"When we look for life elsewhere, either in the Solar System or on exoplanets beyond, this discovery means that we may have to widen the boundaries of the conditions where we think life may exist," said research team leader Philipp Holliger.

"It expands the chemical range that one can envisage life living in. It would potentially widen the number of exoplanets that one could consider would be hospitable for some form of life."

Source: Independent | Comments (5)

Tags: Synthetic Life