Friday, 10 March, 2017, 3:02am
Chinese scientists are taking part in an immense
international project that is expected to create complex artificial
life in the laboratory for the first time by the end of the year.
Researchers had previously produced simple life
forms such as viruses and bacteria but this time the aim is to make an
“eukaryotic organism”, one with cells containing a nucleus surrounded by
a membrane and with DNA held together by proteins.
A research team with more than 200 scientists
from countries including the United States and China will announce on
Friday that Sc2.0, the world’s first artificially designed and built
eukaryotic organism, is expected to “come alive” by the end of this
year.
The new organism could lead to advances in genetic therapies that could help people live longer, the scientists said.
More than a third of the work was already
complete, they said, with successful laboratory synthesis of six of the
16 chromosomes that held the organism’s DNA strands. Their methodology,
research observations and technological developments were detailed in
seven papers in the latest issue of Science. SCMP
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