Man has finally broken the frontier of creating man made life. A while ago, a team of scientists led by Craig Venter, who also one of the first to sequence the human genome, actually created DNA code by scratch and implanted it into a bacteria cell. The bacteria adopted the new DNA and started producing proteins according to its new genetic code. As a result, a new organism, completely designed by man, has emerged. This new bacteria was named Cynthia.
This research opens up many doors. However, it is not all positive. Human made life operates outside of nature and if we created a super organism and accidentally released it into nature, the organism might dominate all others, including us humans. On the other hand, we could use this technology to create organisms such as bacteria that cleans up oil spills or kills cancer cells. The possibilities are endless.
Spiderman teaches us a valuable lesson that “with great power, comes great responsibility” and this certainly holds true with the technology that we now possess. If not handled responsibly, we might endanger our natural world.
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