Artificial Life in 10 Years
Creating artificial life has stopped being a theme for science fiction novels and may be achieved in reality in the next three to ten years, states Jack Szostak, a professor at Harvard University also well-known in the field of madicine.
According to Szostak, Harvard specialists have already managed to create a synthetic cell from basic DNA chemical compounds. Also, scientists from the Research Insitute J. Craig Venter have come up with a method to achieve a complete genome on a fully artificial way.
“ The creation of synthetic proto-cells has may demonstrate our place in the universe and reveal the mysteries of genesis, affirms Marc Bedau, director of the ProtoLife Institute in Venice, Italy.
Szostak and his colleagues are pretty optimistic regarding the achieving of nucleotides, basic DNA compounds, in order to assemble an effective genetic system. However, chance will play an important part as long as scientists rely on darwinist evolution for the following step. “We are not intelligent enough to fully set up such a project. We will let evolution work and see what happens, says Jack Szostak.
When these cells are created, they will be too weak to be possibly maintained functional for more than an hour. However, we must realize that their creation itself greatly exceeds the imagination of researchers of the last decades. We are referring to a technology which will fundamentally change the world, states Marc Bedau.
Source: Daily Galaxy
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