There are times when the line between exhilarating and terrifying is a fine one, and this story makes that line as thin and taut as piano wire. It’s about synthetic biology, the assembling of new organisms from their individual building blocks and kickstarting them into being. One of the field’s early success stories involves Artemisinin, an anti-malarial drug. The synthetic version will hopefully be on the market by 2012, and will reduce the cost and increase the stability of the supply of the malarial drug.
But it’s scary as well. The potential for disaster, intentional or not, is significant. We’re talking about the ability to create entirely unknown genomes, including those for incredibly powerful viruses. The entire article is illuminating, but I’m not sure whether I’ve come out of it feeling hopeful for the future or afraid there won’t be much of it ahead of us.
