Scientists of the world might have gone utterly starry eyed about conquering biological life process last week. Its as if some one just found out a way or the elusive ‘key’ to start a machine called Biological life form. Scientists at J Craig Venter institute manipulated a primordial living cell to act in a normal way by inserting a synthesized DNA and what they did seems a natural progression from the time humans mapped the entire genome sequence across various life forms. Echoes of the Grey Hills begs to ask; Have they captured the holy grail of life science? And what are the ramifications?
Cut the scene to Steven Spielberg and his Sci-fi movies Jurrasic Park & its sequel lost world. In these films spielberg very creatively explained the horrible consequences when man plays God & tries to manage His creations. I particularly like the scene in the movie Jurrasic Park where Hammond , the CEO of InGen (Company that creates the biological reserve) proudly showcases InGen's advances in genetic engineering and shows his guests through the island's vast array of automated systems. In this scene he narrates the Chaos theory which frighteningly comes true as the film plot unfolds. Cant that happen in real life too?
At the scale of this achievement, it may yet look ameoba’isque i.e., manipulations at the level of simple bacterial cells. But can the experiment be repeated across larger forms like Tissues and Organs that are larger clusters forms of cells and particularly so in higher life forms? If the answer is YES , it will not be far when a synthetically manufactured organ would be implanted in a living form by manipulating other factors like biological acceptance without loss of form, feature and performance. Or is it?
Maybe a recent advt by Maruti on spurious spare parts probably drives home this point
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