It's Alive! Alive!

BBC: Researchers at Rockefeller University in the US have made the first tentative steps towards creating a form of artificial life. Their creations, small synthetic vesicles that can process (express) genes, resemble a crude kind of biological cell. The scientists appear to fully understand the controversy their work will likely generate:

Albert Libchaber's hope is to build up towards a minimal synthetic organism, with a designed cell wall, and a mixture of gene circuits that would let it maintain itself like a living cell. As these constructs become more lifelike, the rest of us will have to start rethinking the nature of life. "This is rather philosophical," says Dr Libchaber. "For me, life is just like a machine - a machine with a computer program. There's no more to it than that. But not everyone shares this point of view," he told the BBC.

This sort of research is fascinating to me and I believe will greatly help us learn what 'life' is and how to manipulate it. Obviously some people will find this 'dangerous' or 'irreligious' and I agree that it could be dangerous (the article mentions another experiment where a polio virus was assembled from components.) I think the dangers are outweighed by the prospective benefits however. While I am sure this line of research will cause huge problems in the future (change always causes huge problems) I expect the benefits will be even greater.